Card Game 101 #17: Palace

Palace is a great card game to play with your friends, although it may seem confusing at first glance. Try not to be the last player with cards in this game! Read on to learn the basics of the card game Palace.

✔ A standard 52-card deck

✔ 2-5 players

First, deal three cards face down to each player. Then, deal another three cards face up, on top of the face-down cards, to each player. Finally, deal three more cards to each player as their "hand". The remaining deck is placed into the middle.

The objective of the game Palace is not to be the last player with cards. A card or set of cards can be played if they are of equal of higher rank than the previous card(s) played.

In this game, aces are highest and 3s are lowest. 2s and 10s are special cards, which are explained below.

Before the game starts, players may swap any cards in their hand with any of the face-up cards in front of them.

The player with the lowest ranking card starts play. After playing, the player will draw a card from the deck to return their hand to three cards. Play moves clockwise, and the next player must play a card that is higher ranked or equal to the previous card(s) played. If a player cannot play, they will have to add the entire discard pile to their hand.

Once the draw deck runs out, players will no longer have to draw after playing. Once a player empties their hand, they will play the face-up cards. Once all the face-up cards are played, the player will play their face-down cards, which must be played blind (without looking).

2s reset the discard pile. When played, the player of the 2 will play any card on top of the 2, and play continues.

10s clear the discard pile. When played, the entire discard pile is set aside and a new discard pile started with any card by the player of the 10.

Once a player is out of cards, they are out of the game. The last player with cards left in hand loses the game.

✔ A four-of-a-kind clears the discard pile, just like a 10.

✔ If a player has to take the entire discard pile while playing their face-up or face-down cards, they must empty their new hand first before returning to the face-up/face-down cards.

This will be the last blog in this series, at least for now, as I am running out of games and my tasks are starting to pile up. However, this does not mean that I won't be blogging anymore, and to be honest, I have enjoyed the process of writing all 17 blogs in the series so far. I may blog about something else from time to time, and maybe I will return to this some time in the future.

Thanks for reading, to everyone who has read these blogs!