Teacher Alan Liang (center) prepares to play his card. Gargoyle photos by Alex Zhai. (Click to create a slideshow)

A game of 80 Points going on. From left to right: juniors Brian Wang, Greg Atherton, Richard Wang, and sophomore Daniel Cheng. (Click to create a slideshow)

From left, freshman Warren Skoza, junior Alan Liang (partially obscured), sophomore Jack Snyder, and freshman Jay Kesan play on the first day of class. (Click to create a slideshow)

DURING SEVENTH HOUR, Room 303 is filled with shouts of triumph, moans of despair, and trash talking.

Exclamations of "First ace of spades!" “Yes, we made 80!” “No! Why couldn’t you keep the points down!” and “Oh my god, why do I only have two trump!” are frequently heard.

In this class of constant uproar, students play 80 Points, a complicated partnership card game.

The game requires the players to play with two decks — 108 cards (including jokers) — which, as one can imagine, requires lots of strategic thinking.

In brief, 80 Points is closely related to trick-taking card games such as Euchre.

There are two groups, the defenders and the killers. The defenders win rounds by gaining 80 points or higher, and the killers win rounds if the defenders don’t make 80 points. (For a fuller explanation of the game, see the separate section at the bottom of this article.)

The 80 Points class is in its third year, and it's incredibly popular. This year 80 Points was mostly populated by juniors and seniors, and there were no subbies in the class.

Throughout the period, the three co-teachers — juniors Alan Liang and Charlie Wan and senior Ranny Ma — were always available to help teach beginners and clarify the rules. These three guys know almost everything there is to know about 80 Points, and they are extremely skilled at the game.

After the beginners got accustomed to the rules and ways to play on the first and second day of class, they were able to begin their own game.

I was first taught how to play the 80 Points when I was in sophomore year. I began as a novice, but now I consider myself to be decently good at the game. Also, 80 Points has become one of my favorite type of card games.

For the four days, everyone in the class split up into groups of five or six to play each other. The game I was in consisted of six people: me, Liang, senior Bhaskar Vaidya, senior Geoffrey Beck, junior Brian Wang, and sophomore Daniel Cheng.

Each player was familiar with the game and had his own clever way to play. Vaidya often unexpectedly won rounds with a trump card, Beck was always able to hold on till the end with his jokers, Wang kept the game going with his constant urgings, Cheng supported his partners with the numerous points in his hand, and you never knew whose team the devious Liang would be on.

With a variety of styles, each round was tense. Throughout the rounds, the player I feared the most was Vaidya. He was seated to the left of me, and I never knew when he would play a card that was higher than mine.

One time, I was winning a hand that contained 20 points. Therefore, I decided to play a 10 of hearts that was trump. Unfortunately to my surprise, Vaidya overtrumped my card with a king of hearts, taking the points that should have been mine and gaining 40 points.

Every day, we were able to get in about five rounds, with each round taking at least 10 minutes. By Thursday, Vaidya and I were in the lead, having “advanced” to sixes. Every hand I got was excellent, containing at least six or more trump, including the joker.

Unfortunately, I did not play very well on Friday, having to play once as the only person on my team. I was outnumbered four to one, and allowed my opponents to gain 160 points and advance two levels. At the end of the day, I stayed at sixes while Vaidya was in the lead having advanced to nines.

Despite the clamorous environment from players yelling after winning a round or complaining about losing a round because of a bad hand, 80 Points is an excellent class that teaches you how to play the game, and it is a great place to compete against the elite players of the group.

MORE ABOUT HOW TO PLAY 80 POINTS

• In 80 Points, the five, 10, and king cards are worth five, 10, and 10 points respectively. The goal of the game is to “advance” as far as possible by winning rounds.
• Starting on twos, the maximum the player can advance is three steps, while the least is zero. In order to actually win the game, the player must advance past aces.
• One game may consist of up to as many people as possible, but usually the maximum number is seven. Unlike Euchre, the partners in 80 Points are not decided beforehand. Instead, partners are determined by the trump maker, the person with the “bottom” (last six cards if you play with six people) calling out a certain card, such as the first ace of spades. Once somebody plays the first ace of spades, then they are on the trump maker's team.
• The rules can be very confusing to somebody who doesn’t know how to play 80 Points, and really the best way to learn is through practicing and playing the game.
  

• Also, there are many different ways to play the game. More about 80 Points can be found here.