King Weirdo

Contributed by John Capozella (hochi@erols.com)

Deck: standard 52 cards

Players: 2

Object: First player to build two sequences wins. One sequence begins with a red King and another begins with a black King. A sequence is built in descending rank, alternating colors.
eg. rKing, bQueen, rJack, b10, ... , b4, r3, b2, rAce

Deal: Kings are removed from deck. One red King and one black King is given to each player. Kings are displayed on table in front of each player. The remainder of the deck is shuffled and dealer (flip a coin to determine dealer) deals five concealed cards to each player. The remainder of the deck goes face-down in center of table to become the Reserve. Top card of Reserve is flipped face up and placed next to the Reserve to become the first in the Discard Pile. A hand can never exceed 5 cards at the end of a turn.

Play:

Phase One: The player opposite the dealer takes either the top card of the Discard Pile or the top card of the Reserve. The player then discards either the card taken or another card from his hand. If the player cannot proceed to Phase Two he says "I pass," and his turn ends.

Phase Two: If possible, the player takes card(s) from his hand and builds upon the Kings on the table. The player then takes cards from the face-down Reserve for his hand to replace cards placed on the King Pile(s). If a player holds cards that can be built on the King Pile(s), he must use all such cards. When a player is done placing cards on the King Pile(s) and is done replacing cards in his hand, he then will say, "I pass."

When the end of the Reserve deck is reached, the Discard Pile is turned over and it becomes the Reserve.

Play alternates back and forth between dealer and non-dealer in this manner until either a player completes both of his King Piles and wins outright OR there are not enough cards in the Reserve to replenish a decimated hand. In the later case, play is stopped and the ranks of the lowest cards of each player are added (eg. Player 1 = r4 and b8, total = 12; Player 2 = r5 and b2, total = 7) and the player with the lowest total is declared the winner.

In the case of equal totals, the cards left in each player's hand are added, the highest total being the winner. In the event of another tie, a coin is flipped to determine the winner.