Egyptian Ratscrew

Egyptian Ratscrew

Egyptian Ratscrew description.

Cards played – 52 cards.

Scoring – Player who collects all the cards or is the only player left with cards to play wins.

How to play Egyptian Ratscrew, 2 or more players

  1. Shuffle cards.
  2. Deal all cards to the players face down.
  3. Players do not look at their cards.
  4. Player to left of dealer takes top card off their pile and places them face up in the middle starting the discard pile. If cards is numeric (2-10), play continues, and next player discards card from their face down stack to the discard pile.
  5. If the card turned up is a face or an Ace card, next players have a number of chances to play another face or Ace card. 
    • Ace – Four chances
    • King – Three chances
    • Queen – Two chances
    • Jack – One chance
  6. If no one plays a face or an Ace card, player who played the face or Ace card takes the middle pile, adds it to the bottom of their pile and starts a new discard pile.
  7. Players may also win cards in the discard pile by slapping the pile when one of the following combinations occurs in the discard pile:
    • Pair – Two cards of same kind (Example: 2-2 or Q-Q)
    • Sandwich – Matching cards with one card between them (Example: 4-10-4)
    • Top and Bottom Match – Top and bottom cards of discard pile match
    • 4-card Straight – (Example: 3-4-5-6 or 9-10-J-Q)
    • Marriage – King or Queen played back to back (Example: Q-K or K-Q)
  8. If a card is played on top of one of the combinations and no one has slapped the pile, the combination is lost and play continues.
  9. If a player slaps the pile and there is no combination, the player must add two cards from their stack to the bottom of the discard pile as a penalty.
  10. Play continues until one player wins all the cards or is the only player left with cards to play.
  11. If a player runs out of cards but has discarded a face or an Ace, they are still in the game until one of the other players beats their card.
  12. When a player has no cards left to play, they may still slap the discard pile to win cards but player is eliminated if they slap the pile in error.