Clubbed

A card game for two players invented by Dave Cline together with his daughter Kendall.

Deal and Play

From a standard 52-card pack without jokers, deal 5 cards to each player and stack the rest of the deck face down between you.

Take the top card of the deck lay it face up next to the deck. This is the 'open stack'.

Players take turns to play a card on top of the open stack. The possible plays are:

1. Any card that matches the suit or rank of the top card of the open stack.
2. Any club.

Players must play a card at each turn. Therefore a player who has no playable card must draw cards one at a time from the top of the face down deck until they can play a card.

• A player who has a card matching the suit or rank of the top card (option a) is not allowed to draw from the deck and must play a card at their turn.
• A player who has no card matching the suit or rank of the top card is allowed to draw or continue drawing from the deck even if holding one or more clubs.

Whenever a club is played on the open stack, the whole stack of played cards is given to the player's opponent who stores the cards face down. This is known as "clubbing" the opponent. The object of the game is to force as many cards as possible onto your opponent in this way.

After a player has been clubbed the open stack is empty, and the player who has been clubbed begins a new open stack by playing any card. (If they have nothing but clubs they can if they wish begin by drawing cards until they obtain a card that is not a club.)

When a player plays the last card from their hand they draw a new hand of five cards from the top of the face down deck.

When the deck is exhausted play continues without drawing until a player is unable to play a card in their turn. Each player then adds the cards remaining in their hand to their own face down store of cards. Cards remaining in the open stack are left on the table and belong to neither player.

The player who has fewer cards in their store wins the game.

Special Situations

At the start of a game if the first card taken from the deck to start the open stack is a club, the first player can play any card from their hand on top of it.

During the game, if a player who has just been clubbed plays a club to the empty open stack, this card cis immediately sent to the opponent's store, and the opponent can play any card to the empty pile.

Strategy

A player who has drawn many cards in search of a playable card may have multiple clubs to strike with. When the open stack grows more than 4-5 cards watch out! 

Try to keep count of the clubs that have gone through. 

Try always to keep a club in reserve to strike with when the open stack grows greater than 5 or 7 cards.

A large hand is powerful in the beginning, but a liability near the end of the game as your left over hand is added to your collection pile.