Palace is an entertaining card game for two to five players. It will take skill, and a little luck, to avoid losing this game!

Find the video tutorial and written explanation for how to play the card game palace below.

Palace Tutorial

Needed

52 card deck, two to five players

Card Rank

Highest to lowest - Ace, King, Queen, Jack, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3

Special Cards

2 - resets the discard pile; 10 - clears the discard pile

Deal

Each player is dealt three cards face down, and then three cards face up on top of the three cards face down. Three more cards are dealt for each players’ hand. The remaining deck is placed in the middle.

Objective

The object of the game is not to be the last player with cards. Cards are discarded into the middle throughout the game. Any card or set of cards that are of equal or higher rank than the previous discard can be played to the middle.

Game Play

Before game play begins, players are able to swap any cards from the three cards dealt to their hand with any of the three face up cards. Understanding which cards to swap will make more sense after you learn more about the game play.

The player with the lowest ranking card starts the discard pile. After playing a card, players will draw a card from the remaining deck to return their hands to three cards. Play moves clockwise. The next player will have to play a card of equal or higher rank than the previous card played. Players continue to take turns playing and drawing cards.

If a player is unable to match or beat the rank of the previous card played, the player will have to take the entire discard pile into his/her hand.

Once the draw deck runs out of cards, no more drawing after a turn will take place. Once a player gets rid of all the cards in his/her hand, the face up cards are played. Once all the face up cards are played, a player will begin playing his/her face down cards. The face down cards are played blind.

Lose

Once you play all your cards into the middle, you are out of the game. The last player with cards loses the game

Rules

  • When a 2 is played, the discard pile resets. The player of the 2 will play another card of any rank on the 2.

  • When a 10 is played, the discard pile is cleared from play. The player of the 10 will play another card of any rank to start a new discard pile.

  • A four-of-a-kind played together will clear the discard pile. A player can play out of turn to complete a four-of-a-kind. The player that completes the four-of-a-kind will start the new discard pile.

  • If the card you draw is the same rank as the card you just played on the discard pile, you can add it to the discard pile if the next player hasn’t played yet.

  • If a player is forced to pick up the pile while playing the face up cards, or playing the face down cards, the cards picked up will have to be played before returning to playing face up cards, or face down cards.