Players: 2-6

Ages: 5+

What you need: deck of 52 cards

Object of the game: To be the first to get rid of all of your cards

To start off, deal each player seven cards.  The person to the left of the dealer goes first and continues on clockwise. Place the remaining deck of cards in the center of the table face down, and then take 4 cards and turn them face up to start “layoff” piles. Once a king appears, each will go in each corner space as shown below.

Once it is the first person’s turn, they can play on any of the four cards in the layoff piles, but they must count down from the top number in that pile and it must alternate red and black (from highest to lowest – K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, A, Ace is low).  If there is a King in one of the four layoff piles, they can move it to a corner and play any card, or set of cards in place of where the King was.  If you have an 8? and on one layoff pile there is a 7? and on the other there is a 9?, you can lay your  8? on top of the 9?, and then move over the 7?, giving you a free space to lay more cards.  At the end of your turn, you draw a card from the pile (unless you have used up all your cards during your turn, which means you WIN).  Continue on going clockwise until someone runs out of cards.  If someone runs out of cards during their turn, they do not have to pick up a card from the draw pile and they win the game.

Scoring – At the end of each game, tally up everyone’s points, the person with the most points loses, the person with the least points, wins.  Kings = 10pts, Q-A = 1pt.

You can also turn this into a friendly gambling game with poker chips or quarters.  To play with chips/quarters, if you do not play a card when it is your turn, you must put a chip/quarter into the chip pile and draw a card.  At the end of the game, each loser (everyone except the person who went out), must put into the chip pile 10 chips/quarters for every King they were holding and 1 chip/quarter per card they were holding.  They winner (the person who went out) takes the pile of chips/quarters.

Tips:  Although you may be able to make several plays on one turn (yet, you cannot go out), it may be wise to save some of your plays for a later turn so that you do not have to give a chip/quarter up on your next turn if you run out of plays.  Also, by holding cards back, such as the 8? if one of the cards on the layoff pile is a 6?, but you do not have a 7?/? this may give one of your opponents a chance to play the 7 if they have it, when you do not, further advancing them in the game.