The Lisa Bendall game is a variation on gin rummy, useful
when people are meeting to drink because it’s one of the
few games that works for two people:
Seven cards are dealt to each player. One card is placed
face up and lodged under the deck, to indicate a wild
card — cards of this rank are treated as jokers. Another
card is turned face up as the first card in the “discard
pile”.
Starting to the left of the dealer, a player can
either take a card off the top of the deck, or pick
up any number of cards from the discard pile.
If cards are taken from the discard pile, the oldest
card taken must be played in the hand.
The player then forms runs of length at least three
either in suit or in rank (aces wrap) out of his hand
and any others on the table (though a card cannot be
part of both a number-of-a-kind and a straight).
Cards are played in front of the player, not centrally.
The player must end their turn by placing a card back on
the discard pile.
If a player ends their turn by discarding their last card,
the game ends.
The number of points scored by each player is then
determined by adding the number of points from the
cards that the player has played, and subtracting the
number still in the hand (this means the player to go
out first has an advantage but may not win):
Natural jokers are worth 20
Aces are worth 15
10s and face cards are worth 10
All other cards are worth 5
Fines are one pencil per five points between the
player’s score and that of the player with the highest
score.