Seventeen Banana 2026

Seventeen Banana is a trick-taking game for 2 players about splitting captured card points between the two halves of each hand in an effort to be the closest to 17 for each half. With 60 points total in the deck, someone is bound to be way off!

Each hand of Seventeen Banana is played over fourteen tricks, which are split into two halves. The hand starts with the Deal, then Play over the two halves. During the First Half, players will add a card to their Stash in addition to the trick. During the Second Half, the cards added to the Stash are picked up to form the players’ hands. Once all the tricks are played, the hand is Scored. Each half has the same goal: be the player that captured cards totalling closest to 17. The game was designed for use with Sean Ross’s Trifle deck, but is playable with a standard deck as well. Additionally, it borrows from Chris Cepil’s ingenious Split Tarock and its Stashing mechanic. Seventeen Banana is the first of four games in Fruit Salad, a series of games that pare down some of my recent favorites in order to make them more teachable and accessible to my family. Each game also features one suit as a fixed trump, which can be found in their titles.

—description from the designer