Nerts Card game, also known as Nertz, Peanuts, Squeal, Pounce, and Racing Demon is one of the famous faced paced card game which is often said to be a combination of Speed and Solitaire.
The game requires the players to get rid of all of their cards from the Nerts pile, also called as the pounce pile, by building them from an ace.
This game needs each player to have their own deck for every player and hence if there are 3 players involved, 3 decks will be needed to play nerts card game.
Given below is a detailed description of the game, how to play nerts card game, and a lot more. Keep scrolling!
- Aim of Nerts Card game – To Get rid of cards in Nerts pile.
- Total Number of Players – 2+ players (6+ play in partnerships)
- Total number of cards – Standard 52-deck playing cards + Jokers (optional) per player
- Rank of Cards – From High to Low- K (high), Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, A
- Game type- Patience
- Game Audience – Family
Contents
How to Setup?
- All players deal themselves a Nerts/Pounce pile which consists of 13 cards. 12 of these cards are faced down and the 13th one is faced up.
- Apart from these 13 cards, all the players also deal themselves 4 faced-up cards side by side which form the work piles.
- The rest of the cards form the Stock pile.
- Another pile called the waste pile is formed by taking 3 cards at one time from the stockpile and then turning them faced up beside the stockpile.
- Players arrange their cards in any layout they want to form their tableau around the common area in the center. This common area should be accessible to all players.
How to Play Nerts?
- Nerts Card game is not something you play at turns. All the players play at the same time and whenever they wish to.
- The aim of the game is to get rid of all your cards from the nerts pile by playing them on the foundations or on the work piles.
- When your nert pile goes dry, immediately call ‘NERTS!’ or ‘Pounce!’. The game then ends.
Rules
- You cannot call nerts when your pile exhausts. You can continue with the game to try to improve your score.
- Cards are moved only one at a time. The exception to this can be if you are moving a stack from one work pile to the other.
- The cards are to be moved only within your layout or from the layout to the common area at the center.
- If two players are attempting to play at the same time on the same foundation, then the player who hits the pile first can keep their card on that pile. In case of a tie here, both player get o keep their cards on the pile.
- No players are forced to play cards. They can hold or play wherever they find their best interest.
Stock and Discard Piles
- Players can turn 3 cards at one time to the discard from the stock pile.
- Initially the discard is an empty pile but later on it has to be in order as the top card can be used in work piles.
- If your stock is going dry, that is you have less than 3 cards, then put the rest of the cards on the discard pile and flip the deck to continue playing with the new stock.
- In case all the players get stuck, and there are no more legal moves left, then all players have to form a new stock in the same way.
Nerts Pile
Players can play the cards from Nerts pile to the Work piles and empty work piles or on the foundations. When a player plays the top card from the nerts pile, they can face up the next card of that pile to make strategy to play that card.
Work Pile
- All the work piles have 1 card faced up. The work piles are build in descending order of numbers, and alternate black and red cards with the cards overlapping.
- Players can move a card from one work pile to another.
- Empty space in the work pile can be filled using cards from Nerts pile or the discard pile or another work pile.
- The top card of the work pile, or the lowest ranking card can be played on the foundations at the center in the common area.
- If a work pile is empty, you add a card underneath the pile that is a rank higher and of opposite color.
Foundations
The foundation piles are present in the common area. The foundation piles are started by placing an ace in the common area.
The players can add to the foundation piles by playing a card which is a rank higher than the card before it and of the same suit. Any player can add to any foundation pile.
The foundation piles are built upon till the King is reached. This is a reason why the game is said to be similar to Solitaire. After the foundation pile is completed from Ace to King, the pile is removed from the common area.
The below cards can be played on foundation piles –
- Top card of discard pile.
- Exposed cards on the top of Work Piles.
- Nerts Cards.
Scoring in Nerts
- When a player calls ‘Nerts!’ the game ends and the scoring begins.
- The players lose 2 points for each of the nerts left in their hand and get 1 point for each of the cards played on foundation piles.
- Note that if you call nerts, it does not mean that you will certainly get the highest amount of points. It can, still increase your chances.
- The game can be continues until one player hits the target score which is generally 100.
Jokers
If you wish to, you can add jokers to the deck. Note that you can add jokers to any deck. Before a player moves the joker to play onto foundation, the rank and suit of the card the joker is replacing has to be declared.
However, this need not be done for the Work pile.
I hope you have all found the article of use and could easily understand nerts card game, how to play nerts/pounce game and the nerts game rules.
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