mandowords:

After getting the Han Solo Card Game that recreates the Corellian Spike variant of Sabacc, I noticed it was easy to play and heaps of fun. Too bad I spent almost $50 (AUD) on it… Because you can very easily play it with a normal deck of cards. 

Things you’ll need:

1. 1: A deck of cards
2. 2: A pair of dice

The first thing you will need to do is remove all the face cards (King, Queen, Jack) but keep the jokers in. They represent the sylops cards that there are only 2 of in Corellian Spike deck which represent 0. A Corellian Spike deck has 62 cards in it and a normal deck has 52, so you’ll be playing with 36 cards after removing the face cards. You could buy 2 identical decks and make it so there are 2 jokers and 6 of each number card, 30 positive and 30 negative. Black being positive and Red being negative.

Now with the deck prepared, here’s how you play.
Each player takes turns being the dealer, rotating clockwise around the table (left of the dealer). The first thing you do is shuffle the deck (duh), then deal 2 cards to each player. Place the deck in the middle of the table and take the top card from that pile and place it face up next to it. This is the discard pile. Remember, the goal is to get as close to 0 as possible.

Here’s where the rules start to deviate from the Han Solo Card Game. Because you don’t have the credit chits (which have items on the backs and how much they’re worth) you’d start a betting round. Each player has the chance to make a bet going clockwise (left of the dealer). You have the option of having a small blind and big blind if you’d like. You could use chips, from the packet or poker style, or not have a betting round and play for fun. 

After everyone has made a bet, the dealer has the first turn. Here are your options straight from the card game rule book:

• Take the top card from the draw pile. If you want to, you can also place a card from your hand on the discard pile.
• Take the top card from the discard pile. 

  If you want to, you can also place a card from your hand on the discard pile. 

• Do nothing. This is known as “standing”.

Remember that you CANNOT place a card in the discard pile if you did not take a card from either pile.

Next is the player to the left’s turn, then the player to their left, and so on until the player to the right of the dealer has had their turn. The dealer then roles the 2 dice. If it lands with 2 matching numbers, then everyone remembers how many cards they have, discard them face up in the discard pile, and the dealer deals each player the amount of cards they had before. 

Then another betting round starts and then the dealer has their turn and so on. After each player takes their second turn, roll the dice again, and again after all players have had their third turn.The round is then over. The winning hand is the one closest to 0. It says in the rules that a positive score beats an equally negative score, ie: a hand of 5 beats a hand of -5. But I don’t like that because they’re both 5 away from 0 so decide with your group before the game if you want to house rule that rule out or keep it in. If there is a draw, players with the same hand draw a card from the draw pile and the closest card to 0 wins that tie.

Then you start again with the dealer changing clockwise for the next round. A good way to establish how long the game will last is to decide how many times each player will be the dealer. Once for a short game, twice for a twice as long game, etc.

And that’s it.