How to Play Shithead: Rules & Free Online Game

Objective

Everyone plays for themselves and tries to shed all their cards: first the hand, then the face-up table cards, and finally the face-down ones. There’s no scoring – all that matters is not being the last player holding cards.

Setup and the swap

Use a standard 52-card deck without Jokers; suits don’t matter. The 3 is the lowest regular card and the Ace the highest. 2s and 10s are special.

Each player gets three cards face down, three face up on top of them, and three in hand. The rest form the draw pile, or stock. Nobody knows the face-down cards – not even their owner.

Before play, you may swap any hand card with any of your face-up cards, as often as you like. Everyone swaps at once, and the game begins when all players hit “Ready”. Whoever holds the lowest card in hand goes first (2s and 10s don’t count); seating order breaks ties. They may open with any card.

How a turn works

Play goes clockwise. On your turn, play a card equal to or higher than the top card of the discard pile. Several cards of the same rank can go down together – two Jacks on a 9, for example.

After playing from your hand, draw back up to three cards while the stock lasts. If you still hold three or more, you don’t draw.

If none of your cards can be played, pick up the whole discard pile and the turn passes on. You can’t pick up by choice – if you can play, you must.

Special cards: 2s, 10s and four of a kind

A 2 or a 10 can be played on anything – even on an Ace.

• 2 resets: it stays on the pile, and any card can follow it.
• 10 burns: the whole discard pile, 10 included, leaves the game and you play again straight away.
• Four of a kind burns: when the top four cards share a rank, the pile burns and you play again – even if the four came from different players.
• After a burn the pile is empty, so anything goes. If your last card burns the pile, you’re out and the next player starts fresh.

Face-up and face-down cards

Once the stock is gone and your hand is empty, play your face-up cards by the same rules, several of a kind at once if you like. Hand and table cards never mix in one turn. If no face-up card fits, pick up the pile and play out those hand cards first.

Then come the face-down cards. Pick one and flip it: if it fits, it’s played as normal, so a blind 10 still burns. If not, it goes into your hand with the whole pile and the next player is up. Face-down cards are always played one at a time.

Who ends up the Shithead?

Once you have no cards left, you’re out and take the next place. The others play on until one player still has cards – the Shithead, who loses. There are no points or penalties.

Play several games in the same room and the scoreboard counts how often each player avoided being the Shithead.

Example turn

The 8 of Hearts is on top, and you hold the 9 of Clubs, 9 of Spades and 4 of Diamonds. The 4 is too low, so you play both 9s and draw two cards: the 10 of Clubs and the 2 of Hearts.

The next player drops the Ace of Spades – now only an Ace, a 2 or a 10 will do. You play the 10 of Clubs: the pile burns, you draw one card and go again. Anything fits an empty pile, so the 4 of Diamonds finally goes, and you draw again. The 2 of Hearts stays in your hand for the next high card.

Variants and house rules

Palace and Karma players know plenty of house rules. Here’s how we handle the common ones:

• Low 7: often the next player must play a 7 or lower. Here, a 7 is an ordinary card.
• “Invisible” 3s or 8s (they take the value of the card below), skips, reverses or Jokers: not used here – no Jokers, always clockwise.
• Next player after a burn: some tables pass the turn on. Here, whoever burned the pile plays again.
• Cutting in out of turn with a matching card: here, only the player whose turn it is may play.
• Two decks for big groups: here it’s one deck and up to five players.