Spit

Players and equipment

Two players and a standard 52-card pack, jokers out. A shedding race with no turns: both of you play at once, as fast as your hands allow. Suits are never read, so a worn pack does fine. With four people, use two packs and play two games side by side. Speed, which has a page of its own here, is the cousin played from a hand of five cards rather than from a layout.

The deal

Shuffle and split the pack in half, 26 cards each. Each player lays out five stock piles in a row in front of them — one card in the first, two in the second, up to five in the fifth — with the top card of each turned face up. The eleven left over are your spit pile, face down. That is your twenty-six: fifteen in the layout and eleven to spit.

Play

Both players say "spit" together and each turns the top card of their spit pile face up into the middle, side by side. Those are the two spit piles, and everything is played onto them.

Onto a spit pile

Ace and king are neighbours

A card one rank above or below the one showing, either pile, either player, any suit

From your stock

Turn up the card beneath

Only the face-up top of each of your five piles

An empty stock pile

So up to five stay live

Move any face-up stock card into the gap

Both stuck

Play on

Say "spit" together and each turn the next card of your spit pile onto the middle

There are no turns: whoever gets there first plays. One hand on the cards, and a card that touches a pile is played. If you both land on the same pile at the same moment, the card underneath stands and the other goes back where it came from.

The slap

When a player's five stock piles are gone, or nobody can move and the spit piles are spent, both players slap a spit pile — the smaller one is the prize. Whoever slaps it first takes it; the other takes the larger pile. Each shuffles what they now hold and lays out five stock piles again. A player with too few cards for a spit pile lays out what they have, and that round is played onto a single spit pile from the other player.

Scoring

There is no score. A round ends at the slap and the loser holds more cards; the game ends when one player has none. Tap the winner when it is over, and the app counts games won.

A worked round

Alice and Ben each lay out fifteen cards in five piles with eleven to spit. The count on the right is the cards each still has in their layout; the spit piles in the middle grow by two at every spit and by one at every card played.

Start

26 and 26

Fifteen cards in five stock piles and eleven in the spit pile, each

First spit

Stock 11 and 9

One card each into the middle; then Alice plays four stock cards and Ben plays six

Second spit

Stock 8 and 5

Both stuck; Alice plays three, Ben four

Third spit

Stock 6 and 2

Alice plays two, Ben three

Fourth spit

Stock 5 and 0

Alice plays one; Ben's last two go and he slaps

The piles

Ben 21, Alice 31

Fourteen cards under Ben's hand, nineteen under Alice's

Read the count. Ben has played all fifteen of his stock cards and Alice ten, and each has spat four, so the middle holds thirty-three cards in two piles: one of fourteen and one of nineteen. Ben's layout is empty, so he slaps, and he gets his hand to the smaller pile first. He picks up fourteen and adds the seven he never spat: twenty-one cards. Alice takes the pile of nineteen, the five still in her layout and her seven unspat cards: thirty-one. That is 52. Ben lays out fifteen with six to spit, Alice fifteen with sixteen, and the next round starts with Alice further from the finish than when she began.

Ending

The first player to run out of cards entirely — nothing in stock, nothing to spit — wins. Best of three, because nobody stops at one.

Play from the deepest pile

Every stock card you play turns up the one beneath it, and the cards that lose you a round are the ones buried four deep in the fifth pile. When two of your face-up cards would both go onto a spit pile, play the one from the deeper pile. When a pile empties and you may move a card into the gap, take the top card from your deepest pile, so that pile turns over one card sooner. Five piles of one card each is five chances at every moment; three empty spaces and a pile of four is two.

Both piles, both ranks

There are two spit piles and each shows a rank. Keep both in your head and change them as the cards land, because the pile you are not looking at is the one your opponent is changing. When a card fits either pile, play it where it opens the other pile for your next card and not where it hands your opponent a run.

When to say spit

Only when neither of you can move. The spit is said together, and a player who says it while they still have a play has given away a card for nothing; a player who agrees to it while their opponent still has a play has let them off. Before you say it, look at all five of your face-up cards against both piles. Once it is said, have your hand ready, because the new cards are a fresh start and the first card down after them is the one that counts.

Know which pile is smaller

The round ends at a slap for the smaller pile, and the smaller pile is decided long before the slap. Watch the two piles grow and keep a rough count, so that when your last stock card goes you know where your hand is going before it moves. And you need not be first out to slap: if both of you are stuck with the spit piles spent, the slap is on, and the smaller pile is the prize for whoever gets there.

Speed

The other racing patience for two, and a different game: each player holds a hand of five with a draw pile of fifteen, the middle is two cards between two stacks of five replacements, and when both are stuck each flips a replacement onto the piles. There is no layout and no slap for the smaller pile; the first to play out hand and pile says the name of the game. It has a page of its own here.

One spit pile

The game with a player short of fifteen cards is played onto one spit pile from the other player, and some tables teach the whole game that way from the first round: one pile in the middle, both playing onto it, one card spat when both are stuck. Half the chances at every moment, so it is slower and easier to follow.

Layouts of other sizes

Five piles of one to five cards is the standard layout, fifteen in all. Some families lay five piles of three, which is fifteen again with nothing buried deeper than two, or four piles of one to four, ten cards, leaving sixteen to spit. The rules are the same at any size: only the tops are live, a gap takes any face-up card, and the round ends when the layout is gone.

Slam

The same game under another name, common in the United States, with the same layout, the same spit and the same slap for the smaller pile. Nothing changes but the word said when both players are stuck.

Best of three

One round is a minute or two and one game not much more, and neither proves anything. Play the first to two games, the loser of each shuffling, and keep the seats. On SquareScores each game is one tap on the winner and the table keeps the count.

How do you play Spit?

Split the pack in half. Each player lays out five piles of one to five cards, tops turned up, and keeps the eleven left over face down as a spit pile. Both say "spit", turn a card each into the middle, and race to play their face-up cards onto either middle pile one rank above or below the card showing, with no turns. When neither can move, both spit another card. When a player's layout is gone, both slap for the smaller middle pile, take up their cards and lay out again. The first to run out of cards entirely wins.

What happens when both players are stuck in Spit?

Both say "spit" and turn the next card of their spit pile onto the middle, at the same moment, and play carries on from the new ranks. If the spit piles are spent and neither can move, the round is over: both slap for the smaller pile.

Which pile do you take at the end of a round?

The smaller one, if your hand gets there first; the larger one otherwise. The slap is open to both players, so one who has not cleared their layout may still take the smaller pile if they are quicker to it.

Can you play a king on an ace in Spit?

Yes. The order wraps at both ends: an ace sits beside a king and beside a two, so a king or a two may be played on an ace and an ace or a queen on a king. Suits are never read.

What happens if you have fewer than fifteen cards?

Lay out what you have as stock piles and keep nothing to spit. The round is played onto a single spit pile from the other player, who spits alone when both are stuck. Clear your layout in that round and you have no cards left, which is how the game is won.

Is Spit the same as Speed?

They are cousins, not the same game. In Spit your cards are laid out in five piles like a patience game and you play from the tops; in Speed you hold a hand of five and draw from a pile. Both are raced onto two centre piles with no turns, and both are over in minutes. Speed has its own page here.

Can you use both hands in Spit?

No. One hand plays the cards and the other stays off the table. Most tables also rule that a card which touches a pile is played, and that when two cards land together the one underneath stands.