How to Play Capitalism

Setting Up the Game

Shuffle a deck of cards. You'll need a deck of 52 regular playing cards. For the first time playing, remove the Joker card from the deck. The values of the cards running lowest to highest are 2-10, Jack, Queen, King, and Ace.

Start out with four people. You can always add more players but you need a minimum of four players. This is because once the first round is over, each person will be given a ranking: President, Vice President, Vice Scum, and Scum. The ranking names vary across the world. Variations can include anything that is based on a hierarchy such as Boss, Manager, Worker, Scum. If there are more than four players, add new name rankings like Secretary, Middleman, or Citizens.

Pick a dealer. Have everyone draw a card from the deck. The lowest card value will be the dealer. Put the cards back in the deck once the dealer is picked. To determine the order of the game you have a few options. You can take turns going in a circle starting from the left of the dealer. Or instead, the lowest card is the dealer, the next highest card is the first person to start a trick and on through and the last person goes last. If you choose the latter option, have everyone sit in order of when their turn is.

Deal out all of the cards. Have the dealer give each person one card and continue going in a circle giving people cards one by one until the deck has been given away. A round will end when everyone has gotten rid of their cards and the deck is restored to 52 cards.

Playing the First Round

Have the first person lay down a card. This is the beginning of a "trick." Rounds are made up of tricks, where the goal is to get rid of as many cards as you can and quickly. The person to start a trick must lay down anything higher than a 2 to begin.

Put down a higher card than what person 1 played. Going around in a circle, each person takes a turn laying down one or more cards of a higher value. You cannot match the played card's value, it has to "beat" the card that played on by the previous person. You can't put down two cards of unequal value, they must be exact pairs. For example, if a 4 is on the table, you can't put down a 5 and 7 but two 6's will work.

Play until no one can beat the card on the table. Eventually everyone will begin to run out of higher valued cards that can beat what's on the table. When someone is out of playable cards, they pass on every one of their turns until everyone else has to pass. You can pass even if you have cards that can be played. Passing can be strategic, for instance Passing on one turn does not mean that you forfeit any other turns. It just means that you have to wait until the next go around.

End a trick when no one can play anymore cards. As the game play continues, the dealer collects the piles of cards and sets them aside to start the new deck for the next round. To start the next trick, the last person who laid a card down in the previous trick lays down a card to begin the next one.

Keep playing through tricks until someone runs out of cards. The first person to get rid of all of their cards will be named President. The next person is the Vice President, the next is Vice Scum, and the last person with cards is Scum.

Playing the Next Rounds

Reshuffle the deck. The person who was named Scum in the last round is the dealer for this round and also collects each pile when a trick is finished. Because there may be some numerical runs of cards or doubles and triples may have been played, the deck needs to be reset.

Rearrange seats so that the seating order is ranked. Everyone should be seated in ranked order, so if the group is in a circle, the President should be sitting next to Scum. In many variations of the game, the President is rewarded with the comfiest chair in the house and the Scum is relegated to the most uncomfortable spot.

Start a new round. Before play continues, Scum must give the President their two highest cards and the President can give Scum any two cards they choose.

Begin playing the next trick with the player to the dealer's left. This will always be the Vice Scum, as the Scum will always be the dealer. Now, the rankings will change each round as different people will discard their hands faster and earn the title of President. But what's consistent is that the Scum does the grunt work of dealing and clearing the table after tricks.

Keep track of points as the rounds continue. In order to prevent the game for stretching on forever, award the President 2 points, the Vice President 1 point, and everyone else none every time they earn that ranking at the end of a round. Aim for a goal of 11 points for example so that the game has an ending point.

Continue playing rounds until someone reaches 11 points. This will be the end of the game if you're playing based on points. If not, the game can last much longer or you can start a totally new game, where again you are aiming for 11 points to win.

Adding a Twist to the Game

Add another deck of cards. This increases everyone's chances of getting higher cards. But more importantly, it introduces the option for more doubles and also triples and quadruples. Triples are three of the same value card, not suit type. If a triple is played by one person, the next person must mirror the same amount of cards (three) and beat the card value. For example, the first person plays three 6s. The next person must play three 7s or three of a higher value or pass. Quadruples operate by the same logic as triples, it's just much more difficult.

Add the joker card into the game. Jokers can be used for many functions. They can be treated as a wild card, equaling any value card, if you decide to use that rule. They can also clear a trick. If someone plays a Joker, that trick is done and Scum clears away the stack of cards.

Use 2s or 8s to clear a trick. Like a Joker, a 2 or an 8 can be played to clear a trick. However, an 8 can only be played over a lower-valued card, such as a 6 or a three. An 8 cannot clear a trick when played over a 10 for instance.

Introduce alcohol to spice things up. Capitalism is commonly played as a drinking game and there a couple of different rules that can be added to make the game a little more fun: Anytime a card value is played that equals the amount of players (i.e. a 4 of diamonds and four players or a 6 of clubs for 6 players), then everyone takes a drink. If a player passes their turn, they have to take a drink. If one player puts down the same value card as what is on the pile, then the next person is skipped and a skipped person has to take a drink.