What is 32-card deck?
The standard game here uses a full pack of 52 cards, Two to Ace. With the 32-card deck switched on, the Twos to Sixes are left out and you play with the Sevens, Eights, Nines, Tens, Jacks, Queens, Kings and Aces of the four suits, the pack Mau Mau is usually played with in Germany.
Everything else stays the same. Each player is still dealt five cards, one card is turned up to start the discard pile and the rest form the stock. You still play a card of the same suit or rank, Sevens still make the next player draw two, Eights skip, Jacks are wild and Aces reverse the direction of play.
What changes is the mix. The 16 action cards (Sevens, Eights, Jacks and Aces) are now half of the pack instead of fewer than a third of it, so draw-twos, skips, suit changes and reverses come round far more often. The stock is smaller too: with five players only six cards are left in it after the deal, so the discard pile is shuffled back in often.
Rule changes
| Rule | Standard Mau Mau | 32-card deck |
|---|---|---|
| Pack | Standard Mau Mau52 cards: Two to Ace in each of the four suits. | 32-card deck32 cards: Seven to Ace in each of the four suits. The Twos to Sixes are left out. |
| Action cards | Standard Mau MauThe four Sevens, Eights, Jacks and Aces: 16 of the 52 cards. | 32-card deckThe same 16 cards, now half of the pack, so they turn up much more often. |
| Stock | Standard Mau MauFive cards each; with five players, 26 cards stay in the stock after the start card is turned up. | 32-card deckFive cards each; with five players, only 6 cards stay in the stock. When it runs out, the discards under the top card are shuffled into a new stock, as in the standard game. |
| Start card | Standard Mau MauThe start card is never an action card: an action card turned up is shuffled back and another card is turned. | 32-card deckUnchanged. In the rare deal that leaves only action cards in the stock, the cards are shuffled and dealt again. |
| Other options | Standard Mau MauNine reverses, Ace skips, penalty points and no Mau penalty can be chosen. | 32-card deckThe 32-card deck works with all of them. With penalty points, every card left in a hand is worth at least 7 points. |
History
Mau Mau surfaced in Germany after the Second World War, and its rules were first published in 1958, in Peter Trumpf's book Spielkarten und Kartenspiele. Three years later the same author called it a very recent game that had become astonishingly popular within a few years. German tradition sometimes places the rules in the 1930s, and the origin of the name is unknown.
The usual pack is the 32-card one used for Skat, with either French or German suits. A 36-card pack is also used in German-speaking Switzerland, where the game is called Tschau Sepp, and a full 52-card pack in parts of Austria. Here the 52-card pack is the standard game and the 32-card pack is an option.