Showdown card game played with 2 or 3 players.

Objective

The goal is to add as many points as you can, with cards in the hand and cards facing up on the table (if any).

Play

Dealer deals 6 cards to each player.

Players discard: The first player to the right of the dealer chooses how many cards he will discard (if any) and puts them face down. The other players do the same in order.

The dealer deals the amount of cards each player discarded.

The discard step happens one more time.

After 2 full rounds of discarding, players show their hands and count points.

Discarding cards face up

The first player to discard, after seeing their cards but before discarding, must choose how the discarded cards will be played.

They may say one of the following:

• “We’re showing nothing”: all players discard their cards face down (default if nothing is said).
  • Play this for a quick and straightforward round.
• “We’re showing everything”: everyone discards face down. Once all cards are on the table, they’re flipped face up.
  • Play this for the most points.
• “We’re showing something”: instead of discarding all at once, players discard some cards and pass the turn to the next player on the right. The round continues until all players have said “no more”.
  • Players can choose to discard any card face up or down. Face up cards are immediately visible to all.
  • Strategy: players will tend to discard one card per turn, showing as little of their game as possible, waiting to see what others will do.
  • Play this for a more interactive and slower round, especially if combined with the variation of “pickup” (see below).

Counting points

When counting points, all cards in the hand and cards facing up on the table (if any) add up in the following way:

• Every king and ace is worth 1 point

Then for every card that’s not a king nor an ace:

• Pair of any card is worth 1 point
• Three of a kind is worth 2 points
• Four of a kind is worth 3 points

Players get an additional point for every turn they did not discard anything.

Endgame

The first player to reach 30 points wins. For a longer game play up to 50 or 100 points.

Variant: pickup

When the first player chooses the way of showing cards, they can also add a pickup rule, that is:

• Before a player discards they can choose to swap any number of cards from the table with cards in their hand. Note that players can have max 6 cards in their hand at any time.