Speed card game online

No turns. That is the whole game

Every other card game is a queue. You play, you wait, they play, you wait. Speed deletes the waiting. Five cards each, your own stock behind them, two cards face up in the middle, and from the deal you are both reaching for the same two piles.

A card goes down when it is one rank higher or lower than the card showing on a centre pile. An ace sits next to both a king and a two, so the piles loop instead of dead-ending. Every card you play is replaced from your stock straight away, so your hand refills while you are still looking at it. Getting rid of cards fast beats getting rid of the right ones.

Both stuck? You both press the same button and a fresh card turns onto each pile. First to empty their hand and their stock takes the round. Rounds finish faster than a hand of anything else here, and nobody has ever played one round.

Spit, Slam, Nertz: the names it goes by

Search for this fast paced card game and it comes back under four names, which is why the results are such a mess. Spit is the closest relative, and many people say Spit or Slam for the same idea: a shedding game where you dump your cards onto shared piles instead of winning tricks. Nertz is the one it gets mixed up with most, and that one is a different game, a race between several solitaire layouts at once.

The real difference between Speed and Spit is where your cards sit. Speed keeps a hand of five with your own stock behind it. Spit lays your cards out in solitaire-style stacks in front of you. This version is Speed: two players, five cards, two centre piles, and an ace that counts at both ends.

Online multiplayer here means one other player on one link. There is no lobby, so the only stranger you will ever play is one you sent the link to by mistake.

Speed card game online, 2 player

Two player is the only way the card game Speed is dealt here, and it is the way it ought to be dealt. A card may go onto a centre pile only when it is one rank away from the card showing, so with two of you there are two hands on two piles and the race is even. Put a third player in and somebody is permanently locked out.

So there is no seat chooser on this browser-based table and no mode that seats more. People love Speed for the dead heat at the end, both of you down to your last two cards and neither of you looking at the screen properly. A third player would spoil exactly that.

Touch screens win, and the number keys are the fix

Speed is perfectly suited to a touch screen. On a phone or a tablet you tap the card you want gone, and it is much more fun than clicking around with a mouse. If you have a choice, play this one on the phone.

For quick fingers stuck at a desktop, the cards play from the number keys. Keys 1 to 5 are the five positions in your hand, left to right, and the card goes onto the left pile when both piles will take it. Hold shift for the right pile instead. Space turns the stock when you are both stuck. It works at the computer table and in the room with a friend.

Open a table, send a link, go

To play Speed with a friend there is no download. Open a table and start playing, send a friend a link, no account needed. They open it and they are dealt in. Whoever holds the link takes the seat, so it goes to one person rather than into a group chat.

All the card games here are free, this one included. There might be an ad every now and then, and we will try to keep them discreet. Nothing else to pay, nothing to sign up for, and the only thing you type is a name for the chat.

If the tab closes mid-round the table waits. It stays open for 48 hours, and this page lists the tables your browser is still sitting at. Voice can go on before you make a two-seat table, off until you ask for it, and the audio runs browser to browser rather than through us.

Speed card game online, unblocked

People look for this one unblocked, meaning it has to run on a school or an office network. A browser and an internet connection is all it needs. Nothing to install and no plugin to switch on, so if the page loads, the game runs.

What we cannot do is promise your network lets it through. Nobody honest can. If yours blocks this page, the solo games here are the better bet, because they never open a connection at all.

Why you want a person in the other seat

A computer opponent in a game with no turns is a strange animal. Tune it slow and you always win; tune it fast and you never do. Neither is fun for long, and the practice table is there to learn the rule about the ace and little else.

Against a person it is a different game, because you are both slightly too slow and you both know it. Two people who are already talking get the best of it: just enough challenge to not get bored, but enough breathing room to focus on what the other person is saying.

What you will not find here

No accounts, so no ranking, no streak, no leaderboard, and no lobby handing you a stranger. A table exists because one person wanted a game and sent one link to one other person. Nothing to profile, and voice that never reaches us.

Nothing syncs either. The table list belongs to the browser that made it, so a game opened on a laptop will not appear on your phone. Send yourself the link if you want to change seats between devices.