Knorri is an old game which is thought to be of Finnish descent. The game is designed for play between 3 to 5 players, and uses one standard 52 card deck. The ranking of the cards in this deck are as follows (from highest to lowest); Ace, King, Queen, Jack, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2. This game is sometimes also known as Hörri and "Table Knororri" and has some similarities to the Russian game Durak.
Determination of seating positions and first dealer can be performed in a variety of ways, with drawing for high cards a common method. Using that method, each player would draw one card from a shuffled, face down deck. The players would seat themselves at the table in the order of cards drawn, from highest to lowest. The player drawing the highest card of all would be set as the first "dealer" although no cards are actually dealt to the individual players in this game.
The selected dealer should thoroughly shuffle deck and offer it to the player at his immediate right to cut. After the cut, the dealer deals nine individual face-up cards near the center of the
table and then sets the remainder of the deck face-down near these cards
(or in the center of all the faced cards), as the stock. Unlike most other trick taking card games, no cards are actually dealt to the players.
Instead of a deal, there is a round of draws, which continues in a counter-clockwise direction around the table, starting with the player to the immediate right of the dealer.
Each player in turn, thus turns over the top card from the deck, laying it face-up beside the deck. If there are any face-up cards on the table of the same suit as this card, and of a lower rank, the player must take those cards, as well as the card flipped, into a face-down pile of cards in front of themselves. If there are no cards of the same suit as the card flipped and of a lower rank, the player simply adds it, face-up to the collection of face-up cards in the middle of the table. This flipping of cards continues around the table until the last card has been flipped from the stock. If there are any cards left on the table after the last player completes his turn, any of these remaining cards are taken into the hand of whichever player was the last take any cards from the table.
After this, the second phase of the game begins. If at this stage in the game, any player has a hand consisting of no cards (they never needed to take any cards during the drawing phase), that player is immediately declared the winner of the game. If there are multiple such players, these players are co-winners of the game. However, if every player has a hand consisting of two or more cards, the second phase of the game begins. This phase of the game is then played out in a series of tricks. The suit of spades is always considered the trump suit during this phase.
The last player to take any cards from the table has the first turn during this second phase. This player thus selects any card from their hand to lead to the first trick, playing it face-up to the table. Each other player in turn then attempts to play a card to this same trick. A player may only play a card to the trick if the card he plays is of the same suit as that led to the trick but of a higher denomination than any other card in that suit currently found in the trick. If the card has no cards from the trump suit, and the player has a card in the trump suit, he may also play any such card from the trump suit. If the trick already has one or more cards from the trump suit in it, a player must play a higher card from the trump suit in order to be entitled to play a card to the trick. If a player is unable to fulfill these criteria with cards from his hand, and thus is unable to play to the trick, the player must take the lowest ranked card found in the trick into his hand, and he skips his turn, with the turn advancing to the next player in a counter-clockwise direction. Once the trick contains exactly the same number of cards as there are currently active players in the hand, the trick is removed from the table and set aside. The last player to play a card to that trick then begins the next trick by playing any card of choice from his hand.
The first player to thus deplete his hand completely of cards is immediately declared the game winner.