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Nerts

Everyone plays their own solitaire at once, onto shared foundations.

2-6 playersMediumStandard 52-card per player
solitairespeed

Nerts (also called Racing Demon or Pounce) is solitaire played by everyone simultaneously, racing to dump cards onto piles in the middle that anybody can use. It is loud and fast and nothing like patience. A round takes about 3 minutes.

What You Need

  • Players: 2-6. Four is ideal.
  • Deck: One standard 52-card deck per player, and each deck must have a different back design so cards can be sorted out afterwards.
  • Extras: A big table, pen and paper for scoring.

Key Terms

  • Nerts pile: Your 13-card stack. Emptying it is how you end the round.
  • Work piles (tableau): Your four face-up cards, built down in alternating colours.
  • Stock: The rest of your deck, flipped through three cards at a time.
  • Foundations: Shared piles in the middle, built up by suit from ace to king. Anyone can play on any of them.

Setup

Each player builds their own identical layout at the same time:

  1. Count 13 cards into a face-down pile with the top one face up. This is your nerts pile.
  2. Deal 4 cards face up in a row beside it. These are your work piles.
  3. Hold the remaining 35 cards face down as your stock.
  4. Leave the middle of the table empty for the shared foundations.
  5. Someone counts down and everyone starts at once.

How to Play

There are no turns - everybody plays continuously.

  1. Play any ace into the middle to start a foundation. Anyone may then build on it upward in suit: A, 2, 3, and so on to the king.
  2. Build your work piles downward in alternating colours, exactly as in Klondike. You may move a card or a sequence between work piles.
  3. Play from your nerts pile whenever its top card fits somewhere. Turn up the next card immediately.
  4. When a work pile empties, fill the space from your nerts pile.
  5. Flip your stock three cards at a time and play the top one if you can.
  6. Speed matters. If two people reach for the same foundation, the card that lands first stays.

Scoring & Winning

  • The round ends the instant someone empties their nerts pile and calls "Nerts!". Everyone stops immediately.
  • Sort the cards in the middle by their backs to return them to their owners.
  • Score 1 point for every card you got onto the foundations, then subtract 2 points for every card left in your nerts pile.
  • The player who called Nerts gets a 10-point bonus in most groups.
  • First to 100 points wins the game.

Example

You play an ace to the middle to open a foundation, follow it with the 2 of the same suit from your work pile, then fill the gap that leaves from the top of your nerts pile.

Variations

  • Pounce, Racing Demon, Peanuts: regional names for essentially the same game with small scoring differences.
  • Partnership Nerts: four players in two teams, sharing a score.
  • One-card stock: flip your stock one card at a time rather than three, which makes the game easier and slower.

Tips for New Players

  • Your nerts pile is the only thing that ends the round. Prefer a move that clears its top card over anything else.
  • Do not build long work pile sequences. Cards buried under a sequence are cards you cannot play.
  • Shout "ace" or just move fast - hesitating loses the foundation to someone else.