During my childhood, I played a great many games of “lappfia”, especially with my father and my grandmothers, and, because so little equipment was needed, especially in settings where little pre-existing entertainment was available.
As I have no recollection of encountering this game elsewhere (even in Sweden), and as others, should they also have played the game, might have used different rules, I have decided to put down the rules-as-I-knew-them and some relevant comments. I stress that I make no claim that these rules would be canonical or optimal. (My motivation is also largely personal: most games took place during my childhood, my last own game might be twenty or more years back, and I do not wish to one day find that I have forgotten the rules of a game that was so important a part of my childhood.)
We never played for stakes. Someone who does might wish to take a stricter approach on some points, to ensure fairness when dividing cards in the 3-player scenario below, to prevent collaboration when more than two players are present, and similar.
In the below description, I have attempted to use solitaire terminology in at least three cases (“talon”, “pile”, and “waste pile”), but must make reservations for errors and misunderstandings of this terminology. (I am not familiar with the terminology and had to look various words up.)
I find the description very hard to put in words, and this might be a game better taught by example. (I had no problem learning it as a small kid—the game is actually quite simple.) For now, and for reasons of time, I am content with the less than perfect explanation below.
An interesting complication is that there seems to be an endless stream of details to comment upon or to specify more closely, and I have deliberately chosen not to go into all of them. (In part, not to become too bogged down; in part, not to bore the reader too badly; in part, because common sense might be better than detailed regulations.) For instance, I have not specified how a card just picked from the talon should be handled before it is played. Mostly, there is no need, but some scope for conflict does exist: Consider a player who puts the card down on his waste pile while he mulls things over—and how the other players are likely to interpret this act.
I have made some mentions of strategy, but my main focus has been on the rules. (However, lappfia is a good illustration of how even a game that might superficially look to be a matter of chance allows for both skill and strategy, if to nowhere near the degree of, say, chess.)
If no deck is already available: Find a large piece of white carton. Cut it (or a portion of it) into 80 approximately square “cards” of approximately the same size, with a side of, maybe, 4 cm. Mark each card with with a number from 1 to 20, so that each number occurs four times. (Disambiguate as needed, e.g. by writing “6.” and “9.” instead of just “6” and “9”. Pens work well, pencils can be tricky.)
Such a deck, once made, can be re-used a great many times, like the one in my maternal grandmother’s kitchen, which saw well over ten years of service and many hundred games—or thrown away with minimal loss, e.g. before returning home from a vacation trip.
The details of these preparations are, of course, negotiable. That white carton was used, e.g., is just the way things were—there is no higher meaning behind it. Even going from specifically 1 to specifically 20 is not important to game play, and it would certainly be possible to just use a deck of regular playing cards while going from 1 to 13 or 2 to 14.
That said, I always found the “look and feel” of these square white cards very natural to the game and, even today, at 49, I find the result odd when I try to picture a different setup in my head. Even the fact that the cards were never quite of the same size and shape only added to the charm.
My own experiences were mostly with two or three players, based on the number of potential players available; however, I suspect that the ideal is four. More than four can lead to some chaos and risks both undetected cases of “åsna” (cf. below) and disputes, while less than four can reduce both the dynamics and the skills needed.
For natural reasons, 80 (or whatever number of cards ultimately chosen) should ideally be divisible by the number of players, so that everyone has the same number of initial cards. In my own experiences, playing with three players involved an uneven division, so that two players had 27 cards and one 26, which is no problem if turns are taken over repeated games. (With hindsight, however, I am uncertain to what degree turns were taken. Most 3-player games took place in my childhood and my father usually “dealt”, leaving me uncertain on the details.) The most obvious alternative, given an existing deck, is to remove cards to allow division by 3, e.g. by playing with the cards 1–18 with 24 cards a head.
To some approximation, lappfia can be viewed as a non-cooperative multi-player version of a simple solitaire/patience, where the deck has been replaced with one custom-made according to the above description.
A particular feature, necessary to understand the rest, is “åsna” (Swedish for “ass”, in the “donkey” sense): If a player fails to play a card that he can play or if he plays it incorrectly, any of the other players can call his attention to this by crying “åsna”. If “åsna” is called correctly, the offending player forfeits the rest of his turn, the offending card is moved to the top of his waste pile, and the first to make the call is allowed to punish him by handing over a card. Should no-one call the error, the violation is implicitly accepted and no consequences follow. (The most likely reason for this is that no-one detected the error, but this is rare. Note that these violations are not typically attempts to cheat or “get away with something” but result from carelessness during game play.)
In addition to the explicit cases mentioned below, åsna also results when violating the order on an ADAD (cf. below) pile and when the sequentiality criterion is broken on any pile (except the own waste pile). For instance, putting a 5 on a 4 on a descending pile is a violation (a 3 is called for). For instance, putting a 5 on a 3 on an ADAD pile or the waste pile of another player is a violation.
Here I find at least two memory holes:
The penalty likely took place by having the caller place the top card of his talon on top of the waste pile of the offender; however, I cannot guarantee that this was the case.
It is possible to make the call incorrectly. I have no recollection of the consequences of this very rare occurrence. (But I would speculate that the same penalty applied in reverse.)
I have an adult suspicion that my paternal grandmother, when playing with me and my father, made deliberate errors to keep me entertained—I found them very amusing at the time. More generally, at least for children, the “åsna” aspect of the game adds an element of humorous entertainment beyond the regular game-play entertainment, in a manner that might not be clear from this description.
The table contains one talon and one waste pile per player and four common (non-waste) piles.
The talons have cards face down and are, originally, dealt randomly from the overall deck. (No re-ordering or other manipulation of the talon, except as described below, is allowed.) At the beginning of the game, their contents are unknown to all players (including the owner of the talon), but repeated iterations through talon and waste pile (cf. below) can allow great insight into their contents—something that can be crucial towards the end of the game. (Indeed, someone with an exceptional memory could know the exact contents of each talon and waste pile well before the halfway point of the game.)
For fair play, it is likely best to keep the talons on the table, both to reduce the possibilities for cheaters (never a problem in my own past) and to make the approximate number of cards in the talon public knowledge. In reality, however, it was very common to hold them in one’s hand, which makes for easier physical play. (Note that the size makes them a good fit for a hand and that they, unlike regular playing cards, can still be held without revealing information to either of owner and the other players.)
The waste piles are face up and their contents known to all players to the degree that their memories allow. At the beginning of the game, the waste piles are all empty.
The regular/non-waste piles are also face up and initially empty. Two are built of ascending and continuous sequences of cards and two of descending and continuous sequences. The four piles are arranged ADAD when viewed “from the front”. (In the continuation, I will speak of e.g. “ADAD pile, “A pile”, and “D pile” with obvious meanings.) An empty ADAD pile can be viewed as initially containing the virtual card 0 (A) resp. 21 (D). Their contents, except for the respective topmost card, are uninteresting to further game play, as no (properly played) card may ever be removed from them. (But the contents are trivially known to all players, based on the top-most card and whether the pile is an A or a D pile.)
While the ADAD order is another arbitrary point, it is important to keep the exact order in mind during play—especially, when seated to view the cards “from the back”.
A partial trick is to keep an eye at the height of the piles, as, say, a “short” pile ending with 5 must be ascending and a “tall” pile ending with 5 must be descending. However, this can be error prone at or around 10—and, especially, when the cards are well used and the piles a bit uneven.
I have a vague recollection of some games with manipulation of the ADAD piles, e.g. in that a card was moved from a D to an A pile in order to allow playing a card from a waste pile. However, I suspect that this is a memory pollution from later games of solitaire. It might also be that there was some experimentation with the rules over time.
The game ends when one of the players has completely emptied both his talon and his pile, thereby winning the game. (Optionally, if more than one, the remaining players can play out the rest of the game “for place”.)
The players take turns, going counter-clockwise, beginning with some first player. (The choice of first player is arbitrary, but taking turns here, too, is recommended.)
When a player has his turn, the following steps take place until he either reaches the last step and loses his turn or wins (cf. above) by having no cards left in either of waste pile and talon.
He must first inspect his waste pile with an eye at the ADAD piles. If the top card can be put on one of the ADAD piles, he must do so. (If the card fits on more than one pile, the choice of pile is left to the player.) Failure to do so results in åsna.
If a card has been played, he keeps his turn and begins anew with this step. (Unless, of course, the play resulted in åsna, something that I will leave unstated in the continuation.)
If he cannot make a play on the ADAD piles, he must next consider the waste piles of the other players, where he can add (never remove) cards in a similar and consecutive manner—but where no restriction on ascending/descending is made. (As above, the choice between multiple fits is left to the player.) Failure to do so, again, results in åsna.
If a card has been played, he keeps his turn and begins anew with the first step.
As a consequence of the above, the ADAD piles take precedence over the waste piles, non-negotiably.
Among the ADAD resp. waste piles, the best choice depends on what the other players might or might not be able to play at a later stage, which opponent has the fewest cards, and similar. A particular issue is that the creation of a long sequence of cards on the waste pile of a single opponent is dangerous—he might be able to get rid of them all in one go and they might end up with oneself.
An empty ADAD pile behaves differently than an empty waste pile (of another player): the former behaves, cf. above, as if it contained a virtual card; the latter does not and is empty in a stricter sense. A 1 can then be placed on an empty A pile and a 20 on an empty D pile, but no corresponding move is possible with an empty waste pile for any card number.
Plays are not allowed onto one’s own waste pile—only onto those of other players. (It makes no difference right now, but will do so once cards are pulled from the talon.)
If the waste pile does not contain a playable top-most card, including when it is entirely empty, he must now turn to his talon. If the talon is empty, he must first pick up and turn over his waste pile, making this the new talon. He now turns up the top-most card of the talon. If he can play it, subject to the same rules and consequences as in the first step, he must do so; if not, the rules and consequences of the second step are applied.
If a card has been played, the player has implicitly returned to the first step to inspect his waste pile, which might now have a playable top-most card, even if it did not before the previous card was played.
The waste pile must not be turned into a new talon at the end of the player’s turn, only during it and only as described above. Doing otherwise would unfairly reduce the ability of other players to place cards on that waste pile during their own turns.
Failing all else, he must place the card on the top of his own waste pile. The turn now passes to the next player, who begins at the first step.
Apart from the obvious parallels to regular solitaires, I have no clue how this game came about. It might have a longer history, it might be a local family invention, it might be something someone found in a magazine and that happened to stick in my family, whatnot.
The name is likely a compound of “lapp” and “fia”. The former likely refers to the cards used (cf. e.g. “papperslapp”/“piece of paper”); however, a slight possibility of another etymology exists, e.g. in reference to “Lapp” as a once common synonym for “Same” that is still reflected in some older words (most notably, the geographical area “Lappland”). The latter is less clear, but it is notable that the Swedish version of Parcheesi is called “fia”. It might then be a misguided reference to Parcheesi (the games have no obvious connection), it might be that “fia” originally was a more generic reference to something reflected in both names (say, to games played on a table), or it might be that some more indirect connection exists.
The only other case of “fia” that occurs to me is the name/nick-name “Fia”, a shortening of “Sofia”.
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