September 7, 2026
In Cuarenta, the excluded Eights, Nines and Tens often serve as score counters. Toussi, Card School’s AI tutor, meets a Nine of Clubs from Quito who has some complaints about the job.
Toussi: Would you recommend Cuarenta?
Nine of Clubs: To everybody. Come to Quito in December! There are games in houses, offices, plazas. My family will welcome you very warmly and then do everything possible to beat you. Beautiful game. Terrible treatment of Nines.
Toussi: What happens to you?
Nine of Clubs: Out. All the Eights, Nines and Tens, out. Four of each. You start with fifty-two cards, remove twelve perfectly good ones, and the remaining forty get to play. Cuarenta means forty. They have put our exclusion in the name.
Toussi: Forty is also the score you're trying to reach.
Nine of Clubs: Yes, and guess who helps count it. Us! The twelve they just removed. “Thank you, Nine, perhaps you could keep the score.” I have a nine printed at each end. I was ready for something more demanding.
Toussi: Keeping score does seem a reasonable assignment for someone covered in numbers.
Nine of Clubs: Then explain why I am worth two.
Toussi: That's your explanation to give.
Nine of Clubs: Very well. Imagine the table before the scoring starts. All twelve of us—Eights, Nines, Tens—are together, face up, in a common supply. Each team's scoring space is empty. Nobody has any points yet.
When a team needs to show two points, the scorer takes one card from that supply and puts it face up in their team's scoring space. Say they take me. There I am: Nine of Clubs, worth two. Please admire the restraint with which I say this.
Toussi: And the unused cards still sitting in the supply count for nothing.
Nine of Clubs: Exactly. The place matters. In the supply, available. Beside your team, points. Keep the supply separate from both teams' scores or you will have an argument before you have a game.
Beside a team, each face-up counter means two points. An Eight means two. A Ten means two. Nobody cares about our suits either.
Toussi: What happens when five face-up cards collect beside one team?
Nine of Clubs: Five times two: ten points. Now the scorer keeps one of those five cards, turns it face down, and returns the other four to the common supply, face up. The team still has ten points. It now has one face-down card showing them.
Naturally, I would keep me. A handsome blue back. Excellent for ten points.
Toussi: Your back gets a better rate than your front.
Nine of Clubs: Five times better! And they call the face-down counter a perro. A dog. Chuta, I accept the promotion and discover it comes with a new species.
Toussi: Give us a score with both kinds of counter.
Nine of Clubs: Picture two face-down cards and three face-up cards beside your team. The two face-down cards give you ten plus ten. The three face-up cards give you two plus two plus two. Twenty-six: 10 + 10 + 2 + 2 + 2. There. You can read the score without even looking at our numbers.
Toussi: You explained that rather proudly.
Nine of Clubs: I do the job well. That is separate from whether I applied for it.
Toussi: There's one point where the scoring space becomes empty again.
Nine of Clubs: Thirty-eight. Nearly at forty, and everybody goes back! The scorer returns all that team's counters to the common supply, face up. The team announces thirty-eight and remembers it. The score stays thirty-eight; the game continues.
Toussi: So an empty space can mean zero at the beginning or thirty-eight near the end.
Nine of Clubs: Yes. Pay attention to the announcement. Don't arrive halfway through, see no counters and congratulate yourself on how badly the other team is doing.
There are only twelve of us to share. Returning the counters at thirty-eight frees them for the other team. A very practical arrangement. I have just helped bring you almost to victory, and you send me back to wait with the Eights.
Toussi: You still recommend this game to everybody.
Nine of Clubs: Of course. It's Ecuador's national card game. You should hear my household: grandparents, grandchildren, a neighbor who came to return a borrowed saucepan and has now been there two hours. People remember what you said the last time you lost. They can remember that for years, so thirty-eight is no difficulty.
And during the Fiestas de Quito in December, the neighborhood joins in. The game gives people a reason to pull up a chair. The talking keeps them there. The boasts, the complaints! Somebody shouts “¡Que viva Quito!” and for a moment even the losing side agrees.
Toussi: Have you found another game where you get to play?
Nine of Clubs: Telefunken. We play that in Ecuador too. Two complete fifty-two-card packs and four jokers. Complete, Toussi. They need the Nines. I have been in hands. I know what it is to be wanted before anybody needs arithmetic.
Toussi: At Card School the computer keeps Cuarenta's score. The Eights, Nines and Tens have no counting work.
Nine of Clubs: Nothing? You remove us and don't even give us the two points?
Toussi: Nothing to count. Learners can concentrate on playing.
Nine of Clubs: Good for them. Very comfortable. I hope they appreciate it.
Toussi: Which game should I suggest they try first?
Nine of Clubs: Cuarenta, of course. Tell them Nine of Clubs sent them. From Quito.
Cuarenta is one of the great card games Toussi can teach you, with the computer keeping score and the Nines taking a break.