Beggar-my-neighbour rules

A game with no decisions whatsoever, which is exactly what makes it good with small children — and, in the right deal, unable to end at all.

Also called strip Jack naked. Two to four players is usual.

The deck

A 52-card deck dealt out evenly, face down. Nobody looks at their cards. If the cards do not divide evenly, some players simply start with one more.

The play

Players take turns laying their top card face up onto a central pile.

The demand

When someone lays a face card or an ace, the next player must pay:

Ace: four cards. King: three. Queen: two. Jack: one.

They lay them one at a time onto the pile.

If all the cards they pay are plain number cards, the player who laid the original face card takes the whole pile and starts the next round.

If they turn up a face card or ace while paying, the payment stops at once and the demand passes to the next player, who now owes for the new card.

The pile goes under

A won pile goes to the bottom of the winner's own stack, face down, and they lead the next round with the card that was already on top.

An example

Anna lays a queen, so Ben owes two cards. His first is a five. His second is a king — the payment stops, and Anna now owes three. She pays a four, a nine and a two, all plain, so Ben takes the whole pile.

Running out

A player whose last card makes a demand is not out yet. If the payment stays plain, the pile is theirs and they are back in the game.

Winning

A player who runs out of cards is out. The last player holding cards wins everything.

The famous problem

Because nothing is decided by anybody, some deals loop forever. Mathematicians have hunted for a deal that never terminates for decades without a definitive answer, and long games of several thousand rounds have been recorded.

If it is dragging, count the cards after an agreed number of rounds and give it to whoever has more.

Related games

Egyptian ratscrew plays the same demands and adds slapping: anyone who spots a pair on the pile may slap it and take it. With the slap, the game has skill in it.