भिकार सावकार · Bhikār Sāvkār

Play

Any number of players can play with a standard deck (or decks, if many people are playing) of cards.

All the cards are dealt out one at a time. Each player holds their cards face down in their hands and on their turn, plays a single card unseen from the top of their deck into a central face-up pile.

Sources describe different ways in which the central pile can be captured.

The more interesting version is:^AB

• If the suit of the played card matches the suit of the previous card on the pile, then the player who played the card with the higher rank wins the whole pile.

• If the rank of the played card matches the previous one, and the colour of the cards is the same (black or red), then the player who played the second card also captures the whole pile.

The simpler version is that the central pile is captured when the rank of the played card matches that of the previous card. In this case the player who played the second card captures the whole pile. They shuffle it and add it to the bottom of their personal deck. In this case, the game is basically the same as Snap, only without snapping.

A player who captures the pile restarts the game by playing a card.

Once all other players have run out of cards, the player who is left with all the cards at the end of the game is the winner.

Variants

One way to change the game from a pure-luck game into one of more skill is that a player may look at their card before playing it. They can either play it or put it on the bottom of their deck, in which case they must play their next card.^A