Splunk

Contributed by John P Lawrence

This game is a combination of BS, 21 and Snap. The name is Splunk. The game is played with a 52 card deck, aces to king, aces low. You may also play with jokers, and that will be explained below. Splunk is a 2 player game.

The cards are shuffled and dealt out evenly, both players recieving 26 cards (27 with jokers), which are kept in a face down stack. Each of the two players then place the top two cards of their piles face down in the centre of the table, creating a row of four cards which will be the bases of the four stacks.

Decide who will play first (coin toss, rock paper scissors, etc.) and that chooses any one of the four stacks on which to play the top card of his pile, and then flips the card he played face up. That ends his turn. The second player now plays a card on one of the stacks and flips it face up. Then it goes back to the first person, and so on alternately until one player believes the other has played a card on a pile that has made the total value of the cards in the pile over 21.

The player who believes that his opponent has made a total of more than 21 can "call his opponent out". The players look at the bottom face down card of the stack in question and count up the total: aces count 1, 2 to 10 face value, pictures 10. If it is under or equal to 21, the calling player takes the cards of the stack and adds them to the bottom of his pile. If it is over 21, the accused takes the cards of the stack. The person who won the challenge immediately puts the top card of his pile face down in the centre to start a new stack to replace the one that was taken. Then the loser of the challenge plays a card face up, and so on.

The objective is to lose all of your cards. The first player who runs out of cards is the winner.

You may never look at the cards in your face down pile, nor change the order of the cards in your pile. Note also that you must never look at the card you are playing before deciding on which stack to play it.

There is one x-factor: Slapping. If a card is played on a stack whose top card was face up, and the rank of this top card matches the ranbk of the newly played card, creating a face up pair on top of the stack,then both players try to slap the stack. The person who gets to the stack first gives the stack to the other player, who then begins a new stack in the same way as after winning a 21 challenge.

It is also a slap if a card is played on a stack that already had two or more face up cards, and the new play creates a sandwich - two equal ranked cards with a different card between them. Again, whoever slaps the stack first gives it to the other player and starts a new stack with a face down card.

When playing with jokers, they can be played on any stack, and can immediately be slapped. A joker found face down at the bottom of a stack when resolving a challenge counts as zero.