Damn

Contributed by necronox

Requirements

One normal 52-card deck without jokers; two, three or four players.

Preparation

The dealer shuffles and deals 12 cards face down to each player. The players must not look at their cards. Instead, without looking they must divide them into three piles of four cards. One is the support pile, one is the random pile, and the third pile becomes the player's hand. Players pick up their four hand cards and look at them.

The remaining undealt cards are placed face down in center, as the central deck.

How to Play

The dealer flips the the top card of the central deck face up and places it beside the central deck to start the play pile. Each card added to the play pile must be exactly one rank higher or lower than the previous card. For example if the top card is a 6, the next card played must be a 5 or a 7 (but not another 6). The cards "turn the corner": an Ace can be played on a 2 or a King, and a 2 or a King can be played on an Ace.

Players play in turn, starting with the person to the left of the dealer and continuing clockwise around the table. At your turn, you may play a card from your hand if it fits, or you can turn the top card of your support pile face up and play that if it fits. If you fail to play a card that fits, you must pick up the whole play pile and add it to your support cards, shuffling them together. If you played a card from your hand, you must draw a card from the central deck (if it is not empty) and add it to your hand. Therefore, so long as there are cards in the central deck, everyone must always have four cards in hand.

When the play pile is empty, because a player has just picked it up, the next player may play any card to begin a new play pile.

When the central deck is empty, you must replenish your hand after playing by picking up the top card of your support pile. If you have no hand cards and no cards in your support pile, you must turn up the top card from your random pile and try to play that. If it does not fit, you must pick up the play pile. If there are four or fewer cards in it, these become your new hand. If there are more than four, then you look at them and choose four to keep as your new hand. The remaining cards are placed face down to make a new support pile, which you must shuffle.

Winning the Game

The objective is to get rid of all the cards from your hand, your support pile and your random pile. A player who has no cards at all drops out of the play and the other players continue. When all players except one are out, the last player remaining with cards is the loser.