Switch rules

Setup and deal

Each of the four players is dealt seven cards. One card is flipped to start the discard pile and the rest form the face-down stock. The starter is always a plain card — a 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, king or red queen — so no special effect ever fires before the first turn. You lead, and play starts clockwise (a 10 can change that).

The core matching rule is the Crazy Eights rule: play a card matching the top card's suit or rank. Aces are wild and play on anything. Several cards can go down in one turn — see the sequence rules below.

The special cards

Penalties must be answered or eaten. While a 2-penalty is pending, the only playable card is another 2; while a jack-penalty is pending, only jacks play (black to stack it, red to cancel one). Holding neither, you draw the whole accumulated penalty and your turn ends.

Red jacks resolve immediately. A red jack cancels one black jack (five cards off the penalty). Whatever remains, the red jack's player draws right then — answer a double black jack (10 pending) with one red jack and you draw five; with two red jacks in one play you draw nothing. Red and black jacks may never be mixed in a single play as a "set of jacks": a red jack answers a black jack, it never rides along with one.

Multi-card turns and the 7-flush

A turn may contain several cards. The first card must be playable on the pile; every later card must either match the previous card's rank or belong to a suit opened by a 7 played earlier in the same turn. So a pair of 9s goes down together, and 7♥ followed by five loose hearts is one giant turn.

Effects of the cards played before any 7 apply in the order the cards were laid: two 2s stack to a 4-card penalty, two 10s reverse twice (back to normal), a 10 then a black queen swaps with the neighbour in the new direction.

A worked example: hearts are active and your hand holds 7♥, 2♥, 2♣, 5♥, J♥ plus two off-suit cards. Option one: lead 2♥, 2♣ as a same-rank chain — a live, stacked four-card penalty for the next player, but the hearts stay home. Option two: lead 7♥ and pour 2♥, 5♥ and J♥ behind it, with the 2♣ even chaining by rank onto the flushed 2♥ — five cards gone in one turn, but every special among them fires blank, so nobody draws a thing. Volume or firepower: that trade is the whole art of the 7.

Drawing and passing

• Drawing is a forced fallback. You may only draw when nothing in your hand is playable. With no penalty pending you draw exactly one card and your turn ends — drawn cards can never be played the same turn.
• Penalty draws replace the single draw. Under a pending 2- or jack-penalty with no answer card, you draw the full penalty and your turn ends.
• The stock recycles. When the stock empties, the discard pile (all but its top card) is shuffled into a new stock. This happens at most 20 times per game — a hard cap that guarantees the game ends.
• Passing is a last resort. Only when you can neither play nor draw (stock and recycles exhausted). If all four players pass consecutively, the game is blocked: fewest cards wins, and a tie is a draw.

Winning and losing

• First empty hand wins — immediately, with one exception below.
• You cannot finish on an ace. An ace as your last card still plays (and you name a suit), but you must draw a replacement card and keep playing. Only if there is nothing left to draw anywhere does the ace stand as a winning final card.
• Winning beats the queen swap. If a black queen empties your hand, you win on the spot — the swap never happens, so nobody inherits your empty hand.
• Blocked game. Four consecutive passes end the game; fewest cards wins, ties are drawn.

Edge cases and fine print

• 8s never multiply. One 8 or four 8s in one play: exactly one player is skipped either way.
• The black queen follows the direction of play. After a 10 reverses, "the next player" is your neighbour the other way — a 10-then-queen play swaps with the new next player.
• A black queen swap can backfire spectacularly — you might inherit a bigger hand. The engine swaps whole hands, penalties stay on the table.
• An ace can cap a multi-card play and names the suit, but our AI (and any sane player) avoids ending on one mid-game, since an ace finish forces a draw at the worst moment.
• Pending penalties override wildness. Even an ace cannot be played while a 2- or jack-penalty is pending — only the answering rank plays.
• The starter card is guaranteed plain. Deals are redrawn until the flipped card is a 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, king or red queen, so no game opens with a surprise penalty or skip.
• Direction survives between turns. A 10's reverse is permanent until the next 10, not a one-trick effect.

Variants and house rules

Switch is a pub game with fierce regional loyalties. What we play is the widely used online rule set; the notable differences from common house tables:

• Red jacks cancel; they do not reflect. Some houses bounce the penalty back at the black jack's player. Here a red jack removes one black jack from the bill and the remainder is drawn immediately.
• "Last card" announcements are not required. No knocking, no calling "switch" — the game tracks hands for everyone.
• No jokers. Some tables add jokers as super-draw cards; our deck is the plain 52.
• The 7-flush is in. Plenty of Switch tables play without the suit dump; it is core to this version, along with its cards-after-7-are-inert consequence.
• Drawn cards end your turn. The "play it if it fits" rule from Crazy Eights does not apply here — in Switch a draw is always the whole turn.

Frequently asked questions

Related rulebooks

• Crazy Eights rules — match suit or rank — 8s are wild
• President rules — climb from scum to president
• Idiot rules — shed three layers — don't be the idiot
• Thirteen rules — climb with pairs and runs — 2s rule