Lit 7 Card Comet: the forgotten Star Wars card game

So, with all the talk about sabacc (more specifically the "Corellian Spike" variant), I have taken an interest in other in-universe card games that have been created over the years. And I stumbled upon 7 Card Comet, which only appeared in Paul Cockburn's The Lost Jedi Adventure Game Book.

Although the book does reveal a certain amount of details about the game, I am erm... not quite following. I have a TERRIBLE grasp at card games in general.

I was hoping you guys might be able to help. I'll give you all the relevant passages:

So... those of you who DO get card games.... do we know enough to actually play this? Can we satisfactorily reconstruct the rules based on this?

The only thing I think I get is that the 7 Card Comet deck comprizes 39 cards, i.e. 3 suits of 13 cards: Ace (=1), 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, Senator (=11), Princess (=12), Emperor (=13).

 

The author definitely put some thought into the game and does give the impression that there are rules, and that he (the author) more or less understands them himself. Not sure it's described out in a way that would let us reconstruct them enough to play, though - there are omissions and contradictions aplenty in what we're told.

• The protagonist is initially dealt seven cards. He creates two hands of three out of the seven, placed on two different tables, never telling us what happened to the seventh card.
• Moments later he has nine cards - we are never told where the other two came from - and they're all apparently back in his hand again since he can now form his winning lines out of them. In his narration he divides them into three sets of three, but the division seems to be irrelevant since he needs cards from all three sets to construct the winning lines.
• The protagonist's winnings seemed to be "sucked into" the Comet's Tail, but moments later he explains that a proportion of losses go to the Tail.
• There is mention of "cards in play on the Tail" but it's never explained what that means.
• Also, if a player has three Emperors and three Aces up their sleeve (!!!), you'd be able to create eleven winning lines with a Princess, not eight (plus whatever lines can be created with the rest of the cards in-hand). Assuming the Ace can be either high or low as in conventional poker.
• I don't think there are only three suits, I think the protagonist was just counting the symbols on the cards (an Ace has three "ace" symbols printed on it, for example). We're actually not told how many suits there are, if there are suits, what they mean, or how many cards are in the deck - I suspect more than a standard 52-deck of cards if someone thinks they can stash three Aces and three Emperors in their sleeve and expect card-counters not to notice!

 

@The Positive Fan Ah, so It's definitely not just because I'm bad at card games! Well, I'd gladly ask "Paul Cockburn" some clarification, but he wrote this in 1995 (that's 23 years ago), and anyway I hazven't managed to track him down online with certainty.

 

Apparently he was a big game designer, but you probably know that already Lelal.

In 2013 he responded to the comment section of an interview, so he probably had an account at this site not too long ago (although it looks like he didn't do much with it besides the interview comments): http://realmofchaos80s.blogspot.com/2013/08/imagine-interview-with-paul-cockburn.html

He (and it is definitely the same guy judging by his credentials) is also interviewed on this blog in late 2016: https://armchairadventurerblog.com/tag/paul-cockburn/

I bet if you were to contact the blog owners, they might put you in touch with him.

 

That... that's actually very helpful!