Spit is a great game; it is easy to learn, however, difficult to get used to and even harder still to develop into the supreme Spit champion. Since it is only a one on one game, my family would organize have tournaments with championships and deciding matches for 3rd, 4th, and 5th place. The competition became so addictive that it seeped into all aspects of the game; which player could separate the cards in half without counting on the first try, who could setup the fastest, and how fast we could get through a game.

Spit is all about speed. The difficulty in maintaining that speed is your allowance of the use of only one hand. That is the part that most new players have trouble with. Anyone who chooses to play with two hands cannot play with the big dogs.

Before you begin it is best way to begin is to find a nice flat surface where the competitors can face each other. It is also beneficial to have a small distance from the edge of the table to the center, the reason being that often times you have to slide the card to the edge of the table to pick it up, the farther you have to slide will inhibit your ability to beat your opponent to the pile.

After you have found a spot, split the deck in half. Each player sets up their cards similar to solitaire, flipping the first card face up following with four cards face down side by side. Flip a second card face up on top of the face down card and follow with three cards face down, and so on. After you have set your cards up, set the remainder of you pile above your setup on the right side, your opponent will do the same on the opposite side. Before you start to play, look at your cards and match pairs on top of one another and flip the turned down card to reveal the face. You must keep five cards face up, if you have an empty spot, you may move any card over to that spot and flip the card below, much like solitaire.

The point of the game is to get rid of all of your 26 cards. It plays it in terms of matches, or tricks, and then game. Play starts when both players are ready to flip the top card of their respective decks over. Each player then has the opportunity to quickly play their cards sequentially on top of the flipped card; the players can play on either pile. The aspect to remember is that you only have to play on the top card, so the sequence does not have to continue throughout the pile, so the play can look like this: 5, 6, 5, 6, 7, 6, 7, 8, 7, 6, 5, etc. It's all about getting rid of the all of the cards setup in front of you, when you have done that you slap the pile that is the smallest, because that will be what you take with you and combine to the rest of your deck and setup for another match.

(Hint: Be careful not to slap the pile that you placed your last card on, that may be the bigger pile.)

Eventually one player will not have a draw pile and you will both be laying cards on the same deck, in which case you slap the empty spot and win the game! Spit is a great game. It's easy to play and you will see yourself getting quicker and start to develop strategies. Good luck and have a great time!

Learn more about this author, Catherine Lenehan.
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