Egyptian ratscrew: slaps, doubles and the face-card challenge

Egyptian Ratscrew is a modern American slap game. The short names are ERS and Egyptian Rat Screw. You will also hear Egyptian War, Ratslap and Slap. It takes the old British game Beggar-my-neighbour, in which face cards force the next player to play several cards, and adds the slap from games like Slapjack. Because those two ideas travel separately, tables do not agree on the full list. This page splits them on purpose. The slap patterns are the base game. The face-card challenge is a common variant you should announce before the deal.

Two to five players is the right size for one 52-card deck. Six can play, and the turns get thin. Jokers stay out unless a house has invented a joker slap. Do not invent one mid-hand.

Everyone needs a hand on the center of the table. It is a children's and students' game as often as an adult one. The safety rule is the same at every age: you slap the pile, not the person beside you. Open palms. If a hand is already down, yours stops.

There is no bank and no house edge. Cards move from stack to stack until one player has them. The game sits on the games of chance topic because the deal and the slap are mostly speed and luck, with a little memory of what was just played.

Shuffle the full deck. Deal every card face down, one at a time. Uneven stacks are fine. Players do not look at their cards. The stack stays face down. You take the top card and flip it onto the center.

The player left of the dealer starts. One card per turn, clockwise, onto one face-up pile. Flip outward so you and the table see the rank together. Do not play from a fanned hand you have sorted. Sorting is a different game.

A normal card, a 2 through a 10 that does not make a double, a sandwich or a run, does nothing. The turn passes. The pile grows until a pattern appears.

When a player has no cards left, they stay at the table. They may still slap. A successful slap gives them a new stack, and they re-enter the turning order on the next turn after play resumes. If a legal slap happens and they do not win it, they are out for the rest of the hand. A player who owes a penalty and has no cards is also out.

The winner of a slap puts the center pile face down under their own stack, without searching it for the next double. Shuffling the won pile first is a house rule that breaks up clumps. The base habit is unsuffled cards to the bottom.

Who leads after a slap: the player to the left of the player who had just played the card that completed the pattern. Some houses give the lead to the slapper. This page keeps the lead in seat order so a fast slapper across the table does not also steal the turn. Announce the other lead if you prefer it. Pick one before the first jack.

Agree the slap list aloud. The base list on this page is three patterns.

• Jack. Any jack, of any suit, may be slapped. It does not have to match the card under it.
• Double. The top two cards are the same rank. Two queens, two 5s, two aces. Suits do not matter.
• Sandwich. The top card and the card two down are the same rank, with one card of any rank between them. King, 4, king is a sandwich. King, king is a double, not a sandwich. Queen, 4, jack is nothing.

A fourth pattern is a house rule, used often enough to mention and not universal: a run of three. The top three cards are in rank order, ascending or descending, suits ignored. 7-8-9 and 9-8-7 both count. 7-8-8 does not. Wrapping around the ace, such as king-ace-2, is a further house option and is off unless you say it.

Only the newest card can complete a pattern. You do not slap a double that is buried three cards down. Read the top, the pair, and the one-back card.

The first open hand to land on a legal pattern takes the pile. Two hands: the bottom hand, the one touching the cards, wins. The upper hand comes off. Do not grind a hand that is already there.

Example. The pile ends 6, queen, 6. The top 6 sandwiches the earlier 6. Anyone may slap. If the next card is played before a slap lands, the moment has passed, unless that new card creates a new pattern. Hesitation loses the pile in this game. That is intended.

A jack that also makes a double, two jacks in a row, is still one slap. You do not score it twice. There is no score, only the pile.

Casino war also turns one card at a time and awards the cards to the higher rank. ERS ignores "higher" except inside the face-card variant. A 3 on a king is a quiet card in the base game. It becomes interesting only if it completes a sandwich or a run.

Many tables add a challenge when an ace or a face card is played. It comes from Beggar-my-neighbour. It is not required to play Egyptian Ratscrew. If you add it, use these counts, which are the common set.

The next player turns that many cards, one at a time, onto the pile. They are trying to hit an ace or a face of their own.

• If one of those cards is an ace or a face, the challenge passes to the following player, with the new card's count. The pile stays in the center. Earlier cards are not picked up.
• If they turn the required number and none of them is an ace or a face, the player who played the original challenging card takes the whole pile.
• A jack still has a count of one in this variant, and it is also a slap card. Slaps do not turn off during a challenge. A double or a sandwich created by a challenge card may be slapped, and the slapper takes the pile instead of the challenger. This is why the variant is lively, and why you must say that slaps stay on. A few houses turn slaps off until the challenge ends. That is a further house rule. This page leaves slaps on.

Worked challenge. Ada plays a king. Ben must play three cards. His first is a 5, his second is a 9, his third is a queen. The queen passes the challenge to Cho, who must play two cards. Cho plays a 3 and a 6. Neither is a face or an ace. Ada takes the pile, because Ada's king is the challenge that was never answered. Ben's queen was answered by Cho's failure, so Ben does not take it. The last unanswered challenge wins the pile.

If you do not want this rule, skip the section. Jacks, doubles and sandwiches are a complete game.

A slap when the top of the pile is not a legal pattern is a wrong slap. The player who did it puts penalty cards face down under the center pile. Two cards is the common number. One card is the milder house rule. Those cards become part of the pile the next legal slapper or the next successful challenger wins.

If two players wrong-slap together, both pay. Bottom hand does not matter, because nobody takes the pile.

A player who cannot pay the full penalty pays what they have and is out. Do not put them in debt for the next hand unless you like bookkeeping. Out is cleaner.

The hand ends when one player has all the cards, or when every other player is out. A match is first to two hands, or one hand if the deck is moving slowly. With the face-card variant, hands run longer, because challenges rebuild the pile without a slap.

Wrong-slap disputes: if the pattern was real and you were simply slower, you owe nothing. The winner takes the pile, and your hand should not have landed. If your hand landed and the top card was a plain 8, you pay. Agree that the table can ask "what was the pattern?" and that a true pattern cancels the penalty. Honest tables do this in one sentence.

Do not slap a hand. Do not pin a wrist. A player who slaps people sits out the next hand. That is a conduct rule, and it matters more than the two-card penalty.

Optional stakes are an adult overlay, 18+, settled per hand between players. The rules do not include a rake. If the game stays a student slap contest, leave money out of it. The fairness page is for checking a committed online result after the fact, which is a different kind of pile than this one.

Count 52 when you are done. Penalty cards and slap scatter are how jacks leave the room.

Read this list once. It prevents the argument that ends the game.

• Patterns: jack, double, sandwich. Add runs of three only if you want them. Add king-ace-2 only if someone asks.
• Face-card challenge: on or off. If on, the counts are ace 4, king 3, queen 2, jack 1, and slaps stay active during the challenge.
• Penalty: two cards under the pile.
• After a slap, the lead stays with the next player in seat order.
• A player with no cards may slap back in once.
• Bottom hand wins a tie.
• Hands touch cards, not people.

Then deal. The first few piles will be tentative. That is fine. Speed shows up after everyone has seen one double.

Memory that actually helps is short. Remember the card one down, because it is half of the next sandwich, and remember whether the last card was a face if the challenge variant is on. Remembering the whole pile is impossible once it is more than a few cards thick, and the game does not require it.

If the table wants a calmer one-card game after ERS, deal a simpler war from the same deck: high card takes the pair, and nobody's reflex is involved. ERS is the version where the reflex is the point. Keep the pattern list stable for the whole session. Adding sandwiches after someone has just missed one is how a friendly game turns sour.

Four players is the best first game. Two players makes the challenge variant a long duel. Five players makes the slap more crowded than the cards. Start at four, patterns only, and add the face cards on the second hand if everyone can already name a sandwich without looking it up.

See also slapjack, speed and BS.