Cards4Couples
Easy · 2/5Competitive patienceUSA

Spite and Malice

Also known as Cat and Mouse

A turn-based patience duel: race to empty your face-down pay-off pile by feeding cards into shared centre stacks that run Ace up to Queen, while managing four personal side stacks for cards you can't yet use.

You'll need: Two standard 52-card decks shuffled together. Suits are ignored.

Start the scorekeeper →

Objective

Be the first to play away every card of your 20-card pay-off pile onto the centre stacks.

Card ranking

Low to high: A 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 J Q. Kings are wild.

Setup

  1. 1Shuffle both decks together. Deal 20 cards face down to each player's pay-off pile and 5 cards to each player's hand.
  2. 2Place the rest face down as a shared stock.
  3. 3Turn the top card of each pay-off pile face up. The player showing the higher card goes first (reshuffle and re-flip on a tie).

How to play

  • Start your turn by drawing from the stock until your hand holds 5 cards.
  • Centre stacks must begin with an Ace and build upward in sequence (2, 3, ... up to Queen), suit ignored; at most three centre stacks exist at once.
  • You may play to the centre from your hand, the top of a side stack, or the top of your pay-off pile, making as many centre plays as you can.
  • Kings are wild and take whatever value continues a centre stack.
  • Playing a card onto one of your (up to four) side stacks ends your turn.
  • If you empty your hand without ending your turn, immediately draw five new cards and continue.
  • Completing a centre stack with a Queen removes it (shuffled back into stock), freeing space for a new one.

Special rules

  • You may never move a pay-off card to a side stack, move cards between side stacks, or move cards off a centre stack.
  • The whole point is to keep exposing and shedding your pay-off pile's top card.

Scoring

Scored in games won

Optional point scoring

  • If you want a running score across games: the winner scores 5 points plus 1 for each card left in the opponent's pay-off pile.
  • First to an agreed target (e.g. 50) wins the match.

Winning

You win the instant you play the last card of your pay-off pile to a centre stack. If the stock runs out first, it is a draw (or, by common option, the player with fewer pay-off cards wins).

Game mechanics referenced from pagat.com (John McLeod); rules text is our own wording.