How to play Pishe Pasha
The rules of Pishe Pasha, and a game played out one move at a time.
Rules first. Pishe Pasha, also spelled Pisha Pasha, is a two-player card game: each of you races to empty a stock and a discard pile, on four shared suit piles or on your opponent's discard pile. To watch instead, press play: we deal a short game on the real table and stop on the moves that teach something.
Press play and we deal a short game of Pishe Pasha on the real table. It stops on every move and says what just happened and what you could do next.
The deal
Two players, one standard 52-card deck of playing cards, no jokers. Each of you gets 26 cards, face down, and that is your stock. Nobody looks at it, and on this table nobody can. The four piles in the middle are the suit piles, which pagat calls foundation piles: shared, one per suit, built from ace up to king. Ace is low, and a pile is finished at its king. Beside your stock is your discard pile, face up, which starts empty.
The seat that did not deal goes first, and the dealer changes every deal. A suit pile starts with its ace. After that a card fits when it is the next higher card of the same suit as the top of the pile.
Your turn, in order
One. If the top of your discard pile fits a suit pile, it goes there. No choice, and the table does it for you, then looks again at the card underneath.
Two. If it does not, you may give the top of your discard pile to your opponent, when it is exactly one rank higher or lower than the top of theirs. Any suit. Their pile has to have a card on it. You can give as many as you like, one at a time.
Three. Or you turn the top card of your stock, and that card has to be dealt with before you may give anything from your discard pile. If it fits a suit pile it goes there, even if it would also fit on theirs, and you go back to one. If it fits only their pile, you choose: place it on theirs, or keep it, which puts it on your own discard pile and ends your turn. Any other card goes on your discard pile too, and your turn is over.
Giving cards away, and strategy
Giving is the game. It empties your pile, and it buries their top card, which may be the one they needed. Say their 8 shows and a 7 tops your pile: you give it. The 7 is now their top card, so an 8 beneath it in your pile can follow, then a 7 or a 9 under that.
You can skip a give without penalty. In our head-to-head runs, though, always giving beat both of the versions that held a card back, so in our opinion you give whenever you can. Once a card is on their pile, or on yours, it stays. Pagat's strategy note is to get your highest cards onto your opponent, and it warns that being left with kings in your stock is not good.
Running out, and winning
When your stock is empty and you go to turn a card, your discard pile is flipped as one block, without shuffling, and becomes your new stock. The oldest discard, the one that went down first, comes up first. Your discard pile is then empty, so there is nothing on it to give until you discard.
Whoever first has no stock and no discard pile wins the deal, even in the middle of a turn. The winner scores one point for every card left in the other seat's stock and discard pile. Go out while they still hold nine cards in their stock and four in their discard pile, and you score thirteen.
How a match ends
Pagat gives no match target, so ours is a choice, and it is the host's: one deal, first to 50 points, or first to 100.
Where these rules come from
We follow John McLeod's page on pagat.com, which files it under competitive patience, the card games where two people play patience against each other, and says there are many slightly different versions. Some sites shorten it to a first-out win with no score, and pagat says several books use the name for a simpler game of chance, like War. Pagat also has a stop call for a missed forced play, and Sam Caron's version, where every give is compulsory. Neither is here: the table takes the forced steps for you, and giving is your choice.
How to play Pishe Pasha online
Choose Play with a friend to open a table and get one link to send, and the table waits for the other person to open it. Choose Play the computer to sit down against one computer on the same board. Press Turn a card to turn your top stock card. When your top discard can move, a Give button names the two cards. When a turned card fits their pile, it lies in the middle with two buttons: put it on their pile, or keep it.
Pishe Pasha rules as a PDF
Looking for a Pishe Pasha rules PDF? There is none: the rules are on this page, and the play button steps through a real deal.