12Ka4

This is a variation on a popular childrens game and is also sometimes known as Beggars My Neighbour or Beat Your Neighbour Out Of Doors.

The game starts by diving a standard pack of 52 cards roughly in half. Each of the two players holds their half face down. The players take turns to turn over their top card and play it face up in the center of the table, thus forming a pile. There are two kinds of card - the ace, king, queen and jack are pay cards and the 2-10 are ordinary cards.

Play continues alternately until a PAY card appears. The opponent of the person who played the pay card must pay for it by playing several times in succession. The payment rates are:

The game is a lot of fun and everyone is free to try it out.

When the payment is complete (e.g. A has played a queen and B has played two ordinary cards on it), the person who played the pay card (A in this case) gets the whole face up pile.

At any point in time, the status displays if a PAY Card is in progress, who has to play a card next and how many cards are remaining to be paid in case a PAY card has been thrown. This is useful sometimes to track where you are in the game, in case you have lost the context.

It often happens that while paying for a card, you turn over a pay card yourself. When this happens the previous pay card is canceled and your opponent now has to pay for your new pay card. Example: A plays a queen; B plays a six and then a jack; A plays an ace; B plays 3,7,king; A plays 10,4,6. The king has been paid for so B takes the center pile.

When any player runs out of cards, the total cards that are won by each player is counted and the player with the maximum cards is the winner.

There is no skill in this game (you just turn your top card when it is your turn) and the game can go on.