Nerts

Players and equipment

Two or more players, each with a standard 52-card pack of their own and no jokers. The sheet seats eight: four pairs, or a crowded table of singles. Aces are low and kings high. Every pack must have a different back, because at the end of a deal the cards in the middle are sorted by their backs to find out whose they were; a set of packs with the same picture on the back is unplayable, however many of them you own. It is a fast game, and it works at any age that can tell a red seven from a black eight.

Two is a good game, three or four is the best, and with five playing for themselves the middle of the table gets crowded and the game becomes about reach as much as cards. From six up, play in pairs: partners sit side by side, share one pack, and one turns the stock while the other watches the piles. Nerts also goes by Nertz, Pounce, Racing Demon, Peanuts and Squeal, and the boxed games Dutch Blitz and Ligretto are the same idea with their own cards.

SquareScores keeps the running total. There is no scorekeeper to appoint and no paper: each deal is a round on the score table, every player enters their own number, and the sheet shows who is nearest the line.

The deal

Everybody shuffles their own pack and deals themselves a layout, all at the same time, in a space in front of them. Sit so that everybody can reach the middle of the table, where the foundations will go.

The Nerts pile

The pile to empty

Thirteen cards, twelve face down and the top one face up

The work piles

Your own four building spaces

Four cards face up in a row, not overlapping

The stock

Turned over three at a time

The rest of the pack, held face down in one hand

Some tables deal twelve to the Nerts pile, or eleven. Agree the number before the first deal and keep it for the whole game, because the penalty for cards left in it is the biggest number on the sheet.

Play

There are no turns. When everybody has dealt, somebody says go and every player plays at once, as fast as they like, in their own layout and the shared middle. You may use one hand to move cards; the other may hold the stock. One card moves at a time, except that a run of cards may slide from one of your work piles to another as a block. You never touch another player's layout, and nothing is ever taken back out of the middle.

The foundations are built in the middle, up by suit from the ace: the ace of spades, then the two of spades on it, and so on to the king. Any player may start a foundation with any ace they can get to, and any player may play onto any foundation, whoever started it. When a foundation reaches its king, turn it face down and set it aside so that it is out of the way.

Three kinds of card can go to the middle: the top card of your Nerts pile, the bottom card of each work pile, and the top card of your waste. Getting cards there is how you score, and getting Nerts cards there is how you end the deal.

Your work piles build down in alternating colours, overlapping so that every card shows: a red six goes on a black seven, a black five on that. The exposed bottom card of a work pile may go to a foundation, and any card together with everything below it may move to another work pile where it fits. An empty space is yours to fill from the Nerts pile, the waste or another work pile, and the Nerts pile is the best thing to fill it with. A time-saver most tables allow: when a work pile is complete and you hold the card that would go beneath its last card, slide it under the pile rather than moving the pile onto it.

The Nerts pile is the point of the game. Its face-up card may go to a foundation, onto a work pile where it fits, or into an empty work space. Turn the next card face up as soon as the top one has gone. The moment the pile is empty you may call "Nerts!", and the deal stops. You do not have to call at once: a player who has emptied the pile can keep playing to the middle for a point a card, so long as nobody else calls first.

Turn the stock three at a time, face up onto a waste pile, keeping the three in the order they come. The top card of the waste may go to a foundation or onto a work pile. When fewer than three remain, turn what is left, then pick up the whole waste pile, turn it over to make a fresh stock, and start again. The order never changes, so the cards that were buried in the middle of a three stay buried until something else moves.

Two players reaching for the same foundation with the same card is the ordinary argument of the game. The card that touched first stays and the other goes back where it came from; where nobody can say which was first, both stay and the next card goes on top of both. Nobody is ever forced to play a card. Most tables play in silence: no calling out other people's cards, and no muttering either. Whether you may reach across a neighbour to get to a foundation is the table's own rule, and worth agreeing before the first deal.

If everybody is stuck, with no card in any layout and nothing on the top of any waste pile that will play, the table agrees to stop and each player turns the waste over into a stock as usual, then moves its top card to the bottom, which shifts every three by one. A player who is stuck on their own waits until everybody else is stuck or has stopped playing before doing it. A table stuck even after that scores the deal as it stands.

Scoring

A deal ends when somebody calls. Sort the foundations by the backs of the cards, so that every card in the middle goes back to the pack it came from, and count.

Each of your cards in the middle

1

Every card you played to a foundation, including a king that was set aside

Each card left in your Nerts pile

-2

Face up or face down, counted by everyone except the caller

The caller

0

Nothing left in the pile, so nothing off

Your score for the deal is the cards you played to the middle, less twice the cards left in your Nerts pile. It can be below zero, and often is in the first deal: ten cards to the middle and nine still in the pile is 10 take away 18, which is minus 8.

Each deal is a row on the score table and you enter your own number in your own column; the sheet adds the deals up and shows the line. It takes whole numbers from zero, so a deal that comes out below zero is entered as 0 and the shortfall is owed: take it off your next deal before entering it, and keep owing until a deal clears it. Minus 8 followed by 15 is a 0 and then a 7. The app deals nothing and sees no card, so the sorting and the counting are the table's. The line is 100, and the host can move it on the Host tab for a shorter or a longer game. Shuffle your own pack, deal a fresh layout and go again.

A worked deal

Four players, each playing for themselves, thirteen in the Nerts pile. Mo empties the pile first and calls at once.

Mo

19

19 cards in the middle, nothing in the pile

Alex

17

23 in the middle, 3 left in the pile, 6 off

Priya

0

14 in the middle, 7 left in the pile, 14 off

Sam

0

9 in the middle, 11 left in the pile, 22 off, so minus 13: entered as 0, 13 owed

Mo called with fewer cards in the middle than Alex, and the call was still right: Alex had three Nerts cards and twenty-three in the middle, and one more minute would have seen Alex clear the pile and call first. Priya played fourteen to the middle and lost all of it to seven cards in the pile. Sam never got a work pile moving and comes out at minus thirteen, which is the usual way a first deal of Nerts goes for somebody. The sheet takes no minus, so Sam enters 0 and owes 13: a second deal of 20 goes in as 7.

Four numbers on the sheet, three totals moving and one debt, and Mo leads by two after one deal. The line is a long way off; most games to 100 run eight or ten deals.

Ending

Deal after deal until somebody's total reaches 100 or more at the end of a deal. The highest total wins; where two cross the line in the same deal, the higher wins, and the same total is a draw. On SquareScores the line is the caption and not the referee: when a total passes it, tap End match and the sheet files the result. A table that wants a longer game plays on to 150 or 200, and a table short of time can lower the line before the first deal.

The pile first, always

Every card left in the Nerts pile costs two, and every card played anywhere from it is a card that cannot cost you. So the pile is the first thing to look at after every move: can its top card go to the middle, onto a work pile, or into an empty space? Players new to the game play the pretty move, a long run from the waste onto a work pile, and leave the pile standing. Beginners lose Nerts in the pile, not in the middle.

Empty spaces are for the pile

A work pile that empties is the best thing that happens to you in a deal, because the Nerts card that fills it is one off the penalty and one step nearer the call. Move whole work piles onto each other to open a space, even when it means burying a card you wanted, and never fill a space from the waste when the Nerts card could go there. Four spaces and a Nerts pile that keeps turning is the deal you win.

Keep the stock turning

When nothing in the layout moves, turn the stock. The waste pile is where the aces and twos come from that get a foundation started, and the player whose stock is turning sees three new cards every few seconds while a player studying a stuck layout sees nothing. The order of a stock never changes until a card leaves it, so count the turns: a stock of twenty-four shows you the same eight cards every time round, and a card that will never come up is a card to stop waiting for.

Play to the middle before somebody else does

A foundation only takes the next card of its suit, and every player is holding some of them. The seven of hearts you leave on your work pile to keep a run tidy is the seven of hearts somebody else plays from their waste a second later, and now your eight is stuck. Points are a card each; a card to the middle is a point and a space, and a card held back is neither. Play up fast and let the layout look after itself.

Calling, and not calling

An empty pile ends the deal only when you say so. If you are well ahead, call at once and bank it. If the others are nearly clear and you have cards still to play to the middle, every second of waiting is a point for you and a risk that somebody else clears and calls first, taking the deal and leaving your pile empty for nothing. Look at the other piles before you decide: a player with two cards left is a player about to call.

The Pounce bonus

Many tables give the caller a bonus, usually twenty-five points, on top of the cards they played to the middle. It makes the race to empty the pile the whole game and a tactical pause before calling much less worth having. Agree it before the first deal and add it to the caller's number on the sheet.

One off per pile card

Some tables take one point for each card left in the pile rather than two. Scores stay closer to zero, a bad deal is survivable, and the game to 100 runs a few deals longer.

Stock turned one at a time

Instead of three at a time, cards are turned singly from the stock to the waste. Every card is reachable and the deal is quicker and less of a lottery; the usual reason to play it is a table with small children or a first game.

The threes reversed

Each set of three is turned so that the card that was on top of the stock lands on top of the waste, rather than keeping their order. The stock is the same but the cards you see each time round are different, which changes nothing about the game except which cards come up.

Each deal its own game

Some tables do not keep a running total: every deal is a game, the highest score wins it, and the deals won are counted. On SquareScores that is the same row played a deal at a time: enter the deal's scores, tap End match, and the leaderboard counts deals won rather than points.

Jokers

Two jokers in every pack, each standing for any card. Before you play a joker to the middle, say what it is — the rank and the suit, out loud — so that anybody holding the real card can get there first. On a work pile you say nothing. Once a card is placed on a joker, the joker is that card until the pile above it is cleared. A joker scores like any other card.

Scrooge

Scrooge is the name some tables give to Nerts played with a hand of seven instead of a waste pile. You hold up to seven cards drawn from the stock, play from the hand to the middle or to your work piles, and refill to seven. The hand can lock the whole table, most often with two playing, and the usual remedy is: everybody shows their seven and plays whatever will go; if nothing goes, put your seven under your stock, draw seven new and carry on.

Five work piles and nine in the pile

An older Pounce layout: five work piles dealt the way a Klondike patience is, with one card up on the first and more face down under the others, and nine cards face up in the Pounce pile. Pounce cards go only to the middle or into an empty space, never onto a work pile, and a king may fill an empty space too. Scoring is the same, one a card to the middle and two off for every Pounce card left.

Partners

Six or more players sit in pairs, each pair sharing one pack and one layout. One partner works the stock and the other plays the Nerts pile and the work piles, and they may swap jobs as they like. The pair's score is one number: switch Play in teams on in the Players section and tick two animals per pair; each pair is one column on the sheet and either partner enters it.

How many cards are in the Nerts pile?

Thirteen, with twelve face down and the top card face up. Some tables deal twelve, some eleven, and the commercial Dutch Blitz pile is ten. Whatever the number, keep it the same for every deal in a game, because two points a card is the heaviest penalty on the sheet.

How do you score Nerts?

One point for every card of your own you played to the foundations in the middle, less two points for every card still in your Nerts pile when somebody calls. The caller has no pile left and no penalty. Scores are added up deal by deal, and the first to 100 wins.

Can your score be negative in Nerts?

Yes, on paper: a player with ten cards left in the pile loses twenty points, and a slow deal can leave you with fewer than that in the middle. The SquareScores sheet takes whole numbers from zero, so a deal below zero is entered as 0 and the shortfall is owed against your next deal: minus 8 and then 15 goes in as 0 and then 7, and you keep owing until a deal clears it. A game to 100 is long enough to come back from a bad start.

Do you need a different deck for each player in Nerts?

Yes. Every player, or every pair, plays their own 52-card pack, and the packs must have different backs so that the foundations can be sorted by owner when the deal ends. Two packs with the same back cannot be told apart in the middle, so a game for four wants four different packs.

Is Nerts the same as Pounce and Racing Demon?

Yes. Nerts, Nertz, Pounce, Racing Demon, Peanuts and Squeal are all names for the same race, with small local differences: how many cards go in the pile, whether the caller gets a bonus, and how the stock is turned. Scrooge is the name of the version played with a hand of seven instead of a waste pile. Dutch Blitz and Ligretto are boxed games on the same idea with their own numbered cards.

Can you play Nerts with two players?

Yes, and it is a good game for two: the middle is never crowded and the race is between two piles. Deal and play exactly as with more; the only difference is that fewer foundations get started, so the stock matters more.

How many players can play Nerts?

Two to eight on SquareScores, and as many as can reach the middle at a kitchen table. Three or four playing for themselves is the best game; at five the table is crowded, and from six up most tables play in pairs sharing a pack, which keeps the number of layouts at three or four.

What happens when everybody is stuck in Nerts?

The table agrees it is stuck, and each player turns the waste over into a stock as usual and then moves its top card to the bottom, so that the threes come up differently. If that frees nothing, the deal ends where it stands and everybody takes the pile penalty, since there is no caller.