spite and malice

BASICS
its a card game.
a 2 person game.
it uses 2 decks.
shuffle them separately. shuffle one deck with jokers.
from one deck, deal out 5 cards to each  player. place the remainder of the pile to the side to be drawn from on each turn.
from the other deck, deal out 26 cards to each player. flip the top card over to reveal it.
the person who wins the game is the one who played all 26 cards from their other deck.

ROWS
each player has 4 possible rows on his/her side of the table. the cards placed there cannot be touched by the other player.
cards must be arranged in descending order of value (ace is low, king is high).
you can start a row with whichever card you wish.
suits do not matter.
you can stack cards of equal value in these rows.
therefore, rows can look like this: k, q, j, 10, 9... or like this: 9, 9, 9, 9... or like this: 7, 6, 5, 5, 5, 4, 3
you may not put aces or twos in these rows.

STACKS
the center of the table is the playing ground.
here, cards must be stacked from ace to king.
if a player has an ace, he/she MUST play it.
if a player has a 2, and the ace is down, he/she MUST play it.
cards are stacked in numerical order from the cards you hold in your hand
or
from the cards you have in your personal rows
or
from your other deck that has the one card flipped over and revealed (if you play that card, flip the following card over and build to play that next).
when a stack reaches king, put it off to the side.

MORE BASICS
after your play, if youve played from your hand (either to place cards in your personal row or in the playing field stacks), draw as many cards as you have played from the pile of the one deck.

when the one deck is finished, reshuffle all of the cards that have been put to the side because their stack had reached king (this should include cards from both decks, thus increasing the amount of cards in one deck throughout the game).

jokers can be used as any card except ace, 2, 7, or king.
players MUST do something on their turn. no bluffing or passing.
if neither player can play, both players fold their hands, place the cards in the pile of used (soon to be reshuffled) cards, and draw 5 new ones.




this is a game that was taught to me by alex some years back and then one of my collegues, jenny, reminded me of it right before anna and i came to colombia. it has provided endless hours of entertainment.