JARNAC - a game of words with no mercy.

 

An Exchange of Three Letters:

Instead of drawing one new letter at the start of his turn, a Player can elect to trade in three letters and draw out three new ones. This option is for three letters only, so the player must have three spares to trade. The player is not required to forfeit the turn, this exchange takes the place of drawing a new letter.

 
Disputes:

When a player thinks a word is erroneous, he must say " I dispute" before his adversary has picked a new letter. Once the dictionary has been consulted, if the word is found to be good, the player who was disputed will draw two letters instead of one. If the word is false, play passes to the opponent, who will draw two letters instead of one. If a player intended to use the exchange of three letters option, four letters are drawn instead of three.

Dispute and Jarnac

In cases where a Player is in a position to Dispute and declare JARNAC, he has to say "I dispute and JARNAC" at once, as a JARNAC occurring after the time taken to look up a disputed word is not valid.


Double Jarnac

It is possible to declare Double Jarnac against an opponent when two opportunities to make better words exist. Continuing from the previous example of Player A, who had been delivered a JARNAC over the word COUCH for Player B's CACHOU:

The Start of Player B's Turn:

Player A's board which has no words now.
Player A is left with a K following JARNAC by B

Player B's board showing the word CACHOU and the letters drawn for the turn.
Player B draws six letters to start her turn

 

Player B has drawn BBSHUI in her first draw. She begins with a three-letter word, such as HUB, and adds to it incrementally to gain further letters, and creates the words SHRUB and BAITS. In her last play, she uses the last three letters on her carpet for the word TIE. She then passes to Player A.

Player B's Board showing the words CACHOU,SHRUB,BAITS, and TIE


Player B immediately declares DOUBLE JARNAC on her, as he can see that she could have made two bigger words with the letters TIE, as she could have increased SHRUB to HUBRIS, and BAITS to BATISTE. Player A takes the letters for the words SHRUB, BAITS, TIE, and composes HUBRIS and BATISTE on his board.


The End of Player B's Turn

Player B's board showing only the word CACHOU
Player B is back to having only CACHOU, with no letters to start her next turn.

Player A's board showing  the words HUBRIS and BATISTE
Player A begins his second turn with the double JARNAC words (and the K from his first turn).

Note: When determining a JARNAC, the primary consideration is the value of the word, not whether letters have been used. So, in this example, the JARNAC was justified because the total value of SHRUB(25) + BAITS(25) + TIE(9) is 59 pts, where HUBRIS(36) + BATISTE(49) give a score of 85 pts. If the scores could have been achieved without using all of that player's letters, or causing some to be returned as spares, it still would have been a valid JARNAC

 

The End:

To end the game, a player must have placed a word on all eight rows of his board. It is not necessary to make the last word three letters, however, in placing the last word, he is equally vulnerable to a declaration of final JARNAC against him as in previous plays.
Should it be the case that the Jarnac results in the opponent placing the last word on her board, she is also vulnerable to a final Jarnac. the game is not over until someone places a final word that does not result in dispute or JARNAC.

The Winner:

Placing the final word does not necessarily make that player the winner. The value of the words played are tallied, (a 3-letter word equals 9 points, 4-letter word equals 16 points, and so on...) and the highest scorer is the winner.

Final Note:

It is generally considered wisest to play quickly, to reduce the opponent's opportunity to turn your words against you (in a manner of speaking).

Back to  Jarnac Rules, Page One.

Encore: The rules as described here are done so from memory, and not on the basis of any authority. The official rules [en français] as set down by the creator of Jarnac®, M. Emile Lombard, as well as purchase of any one of a number of editions of the game [bilingual, multilingual, junior] are all available online at the
official Jarnac logo [Link to official site] site.


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