How to play Speed
The rules of Speed, and a game played out one move at a time.
The rules are below, and there are not many. Speed is about hands, not memory. If you would rather see it than read it, press play: we deal a short round on the real table and stop on every move to say what happened, what else you could do, and why.
Press play and we deal a short game of Speed on the real table. It stops on every move and says what just happened and what you could do next.
The deal
One standard pack, no jokers, exactly two of you. Each of you gets five cards in hand and fifteen face down as your own draw pile. Two cards go face up in the middle as the centre piles, and the last ten make two face-down spare piles of five, one beside each centre pile.
You cannot look at your draw pile, not even your own. The cards turn up one at a time as you need them.
Playing a card
A card from your hand can go on either centre pile when it is one rank above or below the card showing. A nine goes on an eight or a ten. Suits do not matter at all.
The ace sits between the king and the two, so an ace goes on either, and a king or a two goes on an ace. The piles run round in a loop and never hit a wall.
Every card you play is replaced straight away from your draw pile, so you hold five for as long as the pile lasts. When a card fits both piles you pick which one. Pick the one that sets up your next card.
No turns
Neither of you waits. You both play the moment you see a move, onto the same two piles. If your friend lands a card on the pile you were reaching for, your card may not fit any more, and it simply stays in your hand.
That is the game, in our opinion the most fun one here. A card that is dead now is often alive again three plays later, so keep your eyes on the middle, not on your hand.
When you are both stuck
No card of yours fits either pile? Press Nothing to play. If your friend can still move, nothing happens yet, and the moment any card is played your call is cleared, because the piles have changed. Check again.
When you have both pressed it, one card turns from each spare pile onto its centre pile and the race starts again. If the spare piles run out, everything under the two top cards is shuffled into two new spare piles. At the computer table the flip comes by itself as soon as neither of you can move.
How it ends
The first to get rid of every card, hand and draw pile both, wins the round.
If you are both stuck five times in a row without a single card played in between, the round stops there. Whoever has fewer cards left in hand and draw pile wins, and level is a draw. Rounds are short, so deal again.