3 players, a 30-card deck (A, K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8 in each suit, plus just the 7♠ and 7♥). 11 rounds; the player with the highest cumulative “pulled” total at the end wins.
Each round, every seat carries a fixed trick quota — a “burden” — of 5, 3, or 2, assigned relative to the dealer: the seat after the dealer gets the 5-burden, the next gets the 3-burden, and the dealer's own seat is always the 2-burden. Everyone is dealt 5 cards, the 5-burden player announces trump, then everyone is dealt 5 more (10 total).
Only the 5-burden player picks trump, right after the first 5 cards are dealt and before the second batch comes out.
You must follow the led suit if you hold one; if you're void, you may play anything, including trump. Highest trump wins the trick, or if no trump was played, the highest card of the led suit. Card strength (low to high): 7, 8, 9, 10, J, Q, K, A. Ten tricks are played each round.
Whoever wins more tricks than their burden has “pulled” the extra tricks from whoever fell short of theirs. Those pulled tricks become debt: the short player owes the player who pulled from them.
Before trump is announced next round, any outstanding debt gets settled one trick at a time. The debtor chooses: let the creditor blindly pick a card from their hand (by position, face down), or defer. A blind pick always settles that debt the moment it's revealed — if the creditor keeps the card, they give back any card of their choosing in exchange; if they decline, the debtor's hand is untouched, but the debt is still settled either way. Deferring is a pure no-op — the debt carries forward to the next settlement checkpoint, with no limit on how many times it can be deferred.