An original card game by Daniel Schulman. It's freely available for any use, as long as you give credit. Look here for more games!
A fast little card-shedding game: everyone tries to get rid of their cards, and the goal is not to be the last one left. This game has an unusual rhythm and strategy: each round starts off simple and easy, and more confusing possibilities open up as things develop. Most rounds reach a point where the best strategy is not to get rid of all the cards you possibly can.
2 or more players, and a standard 52-card deck. Larger groups will want multiple decks — 4 or more players probably want at least 2 decks, but I haven't tested this extensively.
Shuffle, and deal 5 cards to each player. Place the next card face up to make the first play pile (there will be more later). The remaining cards are the draw pile.
Decide amongst yourselves who gets to go first. If you're playing several rounds, the winner of the last round should go first. Play goes clockwise from whoever starts.
You can get rid of cards by playing them onto one of the play piles. You can play a card if it's either the same rank as the top card of the pile, or the same suit but a different rank. However, if you play a card of a different rank, you'll have to pay a penalty, by taking up to 3 cards from the draw pile.
To figure out how much of a penalty you have to pay, count up in ranks from the top card of the pile to your card, wrapping around king-ace-two. This count is your penalty, but only if it's less than 3: you never have to take more than 3 cards.
For example, suppose the top card is a 5 of Clubs. If you play a 6 of Clubs, you have to take 1 card. If you play a 7, take 2. If you play an 8, or any other Club, take 3 cards.
If you can't (or don't want to) play anything at all, you can always pass. But then you'll have to pay the full penalty and take 3 cards. This means that you're usually better off playing something rather than nothing — you wind up with 2 more cards than you had before, rather than 3.
Whenever you have doubles (or triples, or more), you can play the entire group of cards instead of a single card. You only have the pay the penalty once. For example, if the top card is a 5 of Clubs, you can play a 6 of Clubs and a 6 of Diamonds on it as a group, and you have a penalty of 1 card. One of the cards you play still needs to match rank, however: you can't play the 6 of Diamonds and the 6 of Hearts.
When you play a group of cards, the pile splits: each card that you play makes a new play pile, which can be used starting on the next turn. In the previous example, you would get 2 play piles: on one, the top card is the 6 of Clubs, and on the other, the top card is the 6 of Diamonds.
Once there are multiple piles, you can make more than one play per turn: one on each pile. For example, if the 6 of Clubs and the 6 of Diamonds are showing, you could play the 7 of Clubs on one, and the 8 of Diamonds on the other. However, the penalties for these plays don't add up. You only have to pay the largest penalty for any of your plays. In this example, the penalties are 1 card (on Clubs) and 2 cards (on Diamonds), so you pay a penalty of 2 cards.
Notice that the highest penalty you'll ever have to pay on a turn is 3 cards. This means that once you've done a play that will cost you 3 cards, anything else that you do on that turn is basically free — it won't cost you anything extra. You can get rid of a lot of cards at once, and still only pay a penalty of 3.
You don't have to play on every pile if you don't want to. You can choose to play cards on some of them, and ignore others. It doesn't count as a pass (with the full 3 card penalty) unless you don't play anything at all.
When you play off all the cards in your hand, you have gone out, and you're done for that round. Note that you don't have to worry about penalties on the turn when you go out — if you get rid of everything, you don't have to take any new cards, no matter what you would usually pay.
If you go out, and there's more than 1 person left, then the round continues with the remaining players. However, if there was more than 1 play pile (and there usually will be), the player that went out will prune the piles by discarding half of them. The player has completely free choice of which piles to discard, and is free to negotiate in any way with the remaining players. If there is an odd number of piles, round up when pruning: so if there are 3 piles, discard 2 of them, if there are 5, discard 3, and so on.
Play continues until everyone but one player has gone out. The first player to go out is the winner, the last is the loser, and everyone else is just average.
If the draw pile is exhausted before the round ends, then all play piles are reset: all active and discarded play piles are shuffled together into the new draw pile, and the top card is dealt face-up to start a new play pile. If you took fewer cards than your normal penalty because the draw pile ran out, then count yourself lucky. You don't have to take any additional cards once things have been reshuffled.
Suggested house rules: cheating, by playing an illegal card or by taking fewer penalty cards than required, is always allowed. However, if you get caught you have to take back any cards you played, and pay the maximum penalty (3 cards).
The tricky part is figuring out when it's a good idea to split the piles, especially if you're thinking about doing a big, complex play that's going to create several new piles. Remember that if you don't go out, then the next player can use all of those new piles, and you might let them get rid of all their cards in one turn, and grab an easy win.