Played a lot of euchre on the car ride down to it, then a little bit of a bid euchre variant that's apparently fairly local to our region. At one point in the car ride we only had three people interested in cards, but the only game I know well enough with three players is skat and the car is simply not the place for it and I'm not going to teach the bidding without printouts. So we took a break.

I learned a nice Indian game called twenty-nine - it's in the jass family of games (like belote), but it's a little simplified. I think it strikes a very nice balance. I'll keep it!

I mean I like belote but sometimes it's a little complicated to explain and there's a lot to track (and literally nobody plays it in the USA), so it's nice to have something that's a little lighter but keeps a lot of the features that make the game interesting, and I think twenty-nine keeps that balance. Not needing pen and paper or learning an ordering of suits is a big plus.

Rules if interested:

https://www.pagat.com/jass/29.html

@gzt this looks cool!

have you ever played/heard of schmier? it's my absolute favorite card game and almost nobody plays it so i definitely feel you on the hard to explain/nobody plays it front: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smear_(card_game)

(plus there are so many variations that even when you find people who play, they always play slightly differently. the version my family usually plays - 4 point keep low - isn't even listed here)