How to Play Spit Card Game: Rules for 2 Players

Spit is a two-player racing game: no turns, both players playing at once, and a lot of slapping. It is a cousin of Speed with a solitaire-style layout, and rules vary from family to family. This is the most common version.

Setup

Use one standard 52-card deck, no jokers. Each player gets 26 cards.

From your 26, deal your own five stockpiles in a row in front of you, like a solitaire layout:

• Pile 1: one card.
• Pile 2: two cards.
• Pile 3: three cards.
• Pile 4: four cards.
• Pile 5: five cards.

That is 15 cards. Turn the top card of each pile face up. Your other 11 cards are your spit pile, kept face down.

Starting

Both players say "spit" and turn the top card of their spit pile face up into the middle, making two centre piles.

Playing

Both players play at the same time, as fast as they can, using one hand:

• Move a face-up card from your stockpiles onto either centre pile if it is one higher or one lower. Suits do not matter, and Ace and King connect (K-A-2).
• When you move a stockpile's top card, turn up the next card in that pile.
• If one of your five spaces is empty, you can move a face-up card into it from another stockpile.
• Many rules also let you stack cards of the same rank on top of one another within your stockpiles.

When you are both stuck

When neither player can move, both say "spit" again and turn a new card from their spit pile onto their centre pile.

If one player's spit pile is empty, the other player spits alone onto either pile.

Ending a round: the slap

The first player to clear all five stockpiles slaps whichever centre pile they want — usually the smaller one — and takes it. The other player takes the other pile. Both shuffle their cards into a new hand, deal new stockpiles, and play again.

If you have fewer than 15 cards, you deal as many stockpiles as you can, and play continues the same way.

Winning

When a player has too few cards to deal a spit pile, there is only one centre pile. The first to clear their stockpiles then wins the game outright — they have no cards left at all.

Tips

• Clear the tall piles first. The five-card stockpile hides the most cards.
• Slap fast and pick small. A smaller pile next round means fewer cards to get rid of.
• Keep an eye on your opponent's layout. If they need a 4, don't hand them one.

Spit with 3 players

Spit is really for two. Three players can each deal stockpiles from a deck and a half (or two decks), with three centre piles — but the slap at the end of each round becomes a scrum. Speed stretches more comfortably to three.

Spit is brutal on paper cards. Plastic ones survive the slapping.