Speed
Speed has no turns. Both players attack the same two centre piles at once, playing anything one rank above or below whatever is showing, refilling to five cards and going again — as fast as hands can move. Aces wrap onto Kings, so the piles never really close. When both players stall, you flip together and the scramble restarts. Rounds last a couple of frantic minutes, which makes it the game you play six times in a row rather than once. Boxless deals it across two phones, so neither player is reaching over the other.
- Players
- 2
- Playing time
- 5 min
- Ages
- 8 to adult
- Turns
- None
How it's played
Two players, one deck, no turns at all. You are both reaching for the same two piles the whole time, and the only thing that decides a card is who got there first.
The deck splits into three: twenty cards are yours, twenty are theirs, and twelve sit in the middle belonging to neither of you.
yours — five in hand, fifteen face down
theirs, dealt exactly the same way
in the middle, and nobody's
Empty your hand and your draw pile and you have won on the spot. Their twenty are not your problem — you are not taking cards off them, you are just getting rid of yours faster.
Play one, draw one, keep going
- Nothing waits for anything. There is no turn to take and no turn to lose. If a card of yours fits, put it down; if they put theirs down first, the pile has changed under you and you look again.
- The hand refills itself. Play a card and the next one comes off your draw pile straight away, back up to five. You never stop to deal.
- Suit is never checked. Not once, anywhere. The only question the game ever asks about a card is its rank.
- Short a second player? A bot takes the seat, and it plays with a human's reaction time rather than a machine's — sometimes it pounces, sometimes it dithers.
Four ranks.
That's all.
A card plays if its rank is one above or one below the top of a center pile. Two piles, one step either way, so at any instant exactly four of the thirteen ranks are live — about sixteen cards in the whole deck.
And the ranks are a ring, not a ladder. An Ace goes on a King and a King goes on an Ace, so there is no top and no bottom and the piles never close.
showing nowyou can play it
When neither of you can move
It happens. Four live ranks is not many, and sooner or later you are both staring at ten cards that do not fit. Speed's answer is the only cooperative moment it has.
Both piles turn over together
One card off each side pile onto each center pile, at the same moment, and the scramble starts again on two ranks nobody was ready for.
Both of you have to ask. One player saying it does nothing — otherwise the one who ran out of ideas first could keep resetting the table on somebody who was about to play. And if you spot a move while you are waiting, just play it: putting a card down withdraws your request for you.
It cannot jam
When the side piles are used up, everything buried in the center piles gets shuffled and becomes the new side piles, and the flip happens anyway. The table always has another card for you.
A game runs a couple of minutes, which is why nobody plays one. You play six, and the shuffling and dealing between them is the part Boxless does.
Two phones, so neither of you is reaching across the other, and the middle settles who was actually first.