Slapjack
Encyclopedia
Slapjack, also known as Slaps, is a simple standard-deck card game
Card game
A card game is any game using playing cards as the primary device with which the game is played, be they traditional or game-specific. Countless card games exist, including families of related games...

, generally played among children. It can often be a child's first introduction to playing cards.
The game is related to Egyptian Ratscrew
Egyptian Ratscrew
Egyptian Ratscrew is a card game of the matching family of games, reminiscent of Slapjack and Beggar-My-Neighbour, but more complex.The game appears to be a combination of Beggar-My-Neighbour, mentioned by Charles Dickens in his Great...

 and is also sometimes known as Heart Attack. It is also related to the simpler 'slap' card games often called snap.

Gameplay

A 52-card deck is divided into face-down stacks as equally as possible between all players. One player removes the top card of his stack and places it face-up on the playing surface within reach of all players. The players take turns doing this in a clockwise manner until a Jack is placed on the pile. At this point, any and all players may attempt to slap the pile with the hand they used to place the card; whoever covers the stack with his hand first takes the pile but if a card covers the jack it does not count, shuffles it, and adds it to the bottom of his stack. When a player has run out of cards, he has one more chance to slap a jack and get back in the game, but if he fails, he is out. Gameplay continues with hands of this sort until one player has acquired all of the cards.

Snap

Snap is a popular card game
Card game
A card game is any game using playing cards as the primary device with which the game is played, be they traditional or game-specific. Countless card games exist, including families of related games...

 in which the object is to win all the cards. Gameplay is related to Egyptian Ratscrew
Egyptian Ratscrew
Egyptian Ratscrew is a card game of the matching family of games, reminiscent of Slapjack and Beggar-My-Neighbour, but more complex.The game appears to be a combination of Beggar-My-Neighbour, mentioned by Charles Dickens in his Great...

. The game is often one of the first card games to be taught to children and is often played with special packs of cards featuring popular children's characters from television programmes or recent films. For older children, more complex packs exist, where the differences between cards are more subtle and penalties exist for falsely calling Snap.

The pack of cards is dealt out among the players in face-down stacks as equally as possible. Play proceeds with the players taking it in turns to remove a card from the top of their stack and place it face-up on a central pile. If two cards placed consecutively on the pile are identical (or, if a conventional pack of cards is used, are of the same number), the first player to shout "Snap!" and place his hand on the top of the central pile takes both piles of cards and adds them to the bottom of their stack. The player who accumulates all the cards wins.
Alternate rules

Upon two cards being placed consecutively on the pile that are identical, players have to touch or slightly slap their head before placing their hand on the top of the pile. Players who do not touch their head cannot claim the pile. If both players fail to touch their head then play continues. Players who touch their head pre-emptively lose the pile to the other player. Applying this rule often adds humor for both players and on-lookers. Alternative versions of the game include claiming cards simply by shouting "Snap".
As an expression

The exclamation "Snap!" is occasionally used in conversation and has a similar meaning to "Me too!", denoting a similar experience being had between two parties, in reference to the matching cards in the card game.

Irish Snap

Irish Snap is a card game
Card game
A card game is any game using playing cards as the primary device with which the game is played, be they traditional or game-specific. Countless card games exist, including families of related games...

 whose objective is to lose cards as quickly as possible. Since there is only one loser, forfeits can be made for the person with all the cards at the end of the game.
Alternate rules

A pack of cards, excluding jokers
Joker (playing card)
Joker is a special type of playing card found in most modern decks, or else a type of tile in some Mahjong game sets.-Name:It is believed that the term "Joker" comes from a mispronunciation of Jucker, the German/Alsatian name for the game Euchre. The card was originally introduced in about 1860 for...

, is shuffled and dealt out equally to the players; none of whom are allowed to view any of the cards they have been given (Unless their name is Danny, when playing by Swedish rules). Going around in turn, each player must place and reveal one of his cards in the middle of the table. While this is happening the number of a card is spoken in unison by every player at the table in their native language. The number spoken is simply determined, starting from ace for the first card revealed, two for the second and three for the third etc. If the actual number of the card laid down matches the number just spoken, each player must slam the pack in the middle, jump up and down 3 times, and punch themselves in the face. The last one to do so must pick up the pack underneath their hands. They are the first to start the next round. This continues until all players except one have lost their cards.

An alternate way of receiving all the cards is snapping when there is not actually any kind of matching pair; however, in order for this to come into effect the player must touch the deck in the middle, and scream at the top of their lungs. If they simply shout snap, or motion towards it, the game carries on as normal. If they do not, then all players must turn to their left, and subsequently sneeze on the player next to them.

The game can also be continued so that even players who have lost all their cards still take part in the game. This is game is known as "Cheerleading" They will still say the next number after the previous person whilst not putting down a card. For example if person B has lost all their cards and player A puts down a 7 whilst saying the number 6, as soon as player B says 7 everyone slams for the pile. It is common for the person to dummy, in which case if he has not said the number the person who touches the pile incorrectly will pick up the pile.

An extra, optional, rule of Irish snap is that anything said, including the card number and snap must be done so in an Irish accent.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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