by Anne Parker

Created on: January 05, 2009   Last Updated: February 01, 2011

Nertz is a fast paced card game for anyone who can keep up! To play this game, you need more than two players, and in this case, the more the merrier! Each player needs a full 52-card deck, jokers excluded.

Set up:

Each player needs about a square foot of personal space, and the table being played on should be round enough that everything should be relatively in-reach of any player.

All of the players should lay out four cards, face up in a row. To the right or left of them (it doesn't really matter) will be your Nertz pile. Your Nertz pile should have twelve cards facing down, with the thirteenth card facing up. The rest of your cards should be held in your non-dominant hand. The goal of the game is to get your Nertz pile down to zero.

Rules:

1. No hand slapping. You'll find out why later. 2.You might want to take off any rings or watches. They can get in the way when the competition heats up! 3.No two handed action. Just like no double teaming. You'll find out why later. Besides these, pretty much anything goes!

Playing:
If you have any aces on your Nertz pile or your four cards, slide them out to the middle first! Anyone can play off of them! If you lay out your ace of diamonds, and two of your friends have the two of diamonds, it's on a first come, first serve basis! The 2 of diamonds is laid on top of the ace, then the 3 of diamonds will be laid down on top of that, then the 4, then 5, and 6, and so on and so on until it reaches the king of diamonds. After a while you will have 15 or 20 on-going piles of cards, all at separate stages. You can put out cards on your four card row or your Nertz pile. It will be a mad house to get your cards out on the table- they will soon earn you points!

On your four cards that you laid out earlier you can play on those as well; only you don't play with the same suit. You play on a red, black, red, black routine. If you have a red four on your laid out cards, feel free to move that black 3 on your Nertz pile over. Hey, it's another one off of your Nertz pile! Just don't move any buried cards out onto the table- that's cheating!

Remember the remaining cards in your non-dominant hand? From the start you will be flipping out three at a time, with the opportunity to play the top one. Can't play it? Don't fret. Just flip another three cards. But don't be too wrapped up in this pile, watch for chances to play off of your Nertz pile and your four card row too!

Once a pile is built up with the same suit all the way to a king, the pile is flipped over and scooted out of the way by the person who laid the king down. Or should I say smacked the king down?! =)
Scoring:

When someone has no more cards in his/her Nertz pile, they shout out, "Nertz!" and the game is over. You scoop up all of the cards in the middle of the table and count up how many cards you have left in your Nertz pile. Subtract your Nertz pile from the number of cards you laid out on the table. The person who went Nertz of course subtracts zero. This is one of those games that has an unlimited number of rounds you can play! I once played 43 consecutive rounds last Christmas!

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