Pitty Pat

An ace of spades next to a pile of cards with the ace of hearts showing.Pitty Pat is a simple card game for two to five players. Players compete to get rid of cards in their hand by matching them with the top card of the discard pile. The game is quite popular in the Central American country of Belize, and has been described as that country’s national card game.

Object of Pitty Pat

The object of Pitty Pat is to be the first player to get rid of all of your cards by forming them into pairs.

Setup

Pitty Pat is played with one standard 52-card deck of playing cards. If you want to give your players the best possible gaming experience, and avoid sticky, bent, or torn cards, you’re going to want to use a deck of Denexa 100% Plastic Playing Cards.

Shuffle and deal five cards to each player. Place the deck stub in the center of the table, forming the stock. Then, turn the top card of the stock face up; this card, the upcard, is the first card of the discard pile.

Game play

The player to the dealer’s left goes first. They compare the upcard with the cards in their hand. If they hold any card of the same rank as the upcard, they discard that card. They may then discard any other card they wish (which becomes the new upcard), and the turn passes to the player to their left.

If the player doesn’t have any cards that match the rank of the upcard, they turn over a new card from the stock. If they can match this new upcard, they discard the matching card and any other card from their hand, as before. Regardless of whether they can play or not, the turn then passes to the left. The next player then tries to match against the new upcard, and so on.

Game play continues until one player runs out of cards. That player is the winner.

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