NUMBER OF PLAYERS 2 to 6Do you or your kids like Solitaire? If so, you will really enjoy Pounce. Each player in this Solitaire-inspired game uses her own deck of cards to build communal foundation piles—at speed, in a jumble, each player trying to outthink and outmaneuver the other.
NUMBER OF PLAYERS 2 to 6
HOW TO DEAL Each player needs a fifty-two-card deck (each deck should have a different design so you can tell them apart). Each player deals his own Klondike-style tableau (see “Klondike”) like so: Starting to your left, deal one card to the first pile, two cards to the second pile, three cards to the third pile, etc., until you have five piles. All cards are dealt face down, except for the top card in each pile, which is turned up.
Next, deal a sixth “Pounce” pile by taking the top card off your deck and placing it face down, followed by the next card off your deck, etc., until there are nine cards in the Pounce pile. Now turn the entire Pounce pile face up. The remaining cards are your stock.
WINNING The goal is to play all your Pounce cards. Each player earns -2 points for each of their remaining Pounce cards and +1 point for every card built on the foundations (different card backings make it easy to assign points to the correct player). Games are typically played to 100 points.
HOW TO PLAY Nominate a scorekeeper before dealing. Once each player has created a five-pile tableau plus a Pounce pile, the scorekeeper says “go!”
Each player starts by moving aces to the foundations, which are shared among all players. Start building on the foundations—any foundation—by suit in ascending rank (on 4 of hearts you may build 5 of hearts, on J of spades you may build Q of spades, etc.). The game is cutthroat, so if you and an opponent can both build on the same foundation, the first player to lay down the card prevails.
On your own tableau, you may build in descending rank by alternating color (e.g., on 4 of hearts you may build 3 of clubs or 3 of spades, on J of spades you may build 10 of diamonds or 10 of hearts, etc.). After you play the topmost card in a tableau pile, turn up the card below. Fill voids in your tableau with a king or the topmost card in your Pounce pile. At any point, you may also use Pounce cards to build on the communal foundations (but never on your tableau piles).
If you get stuck at any point, play cards from your stock to your tableau (never to the foundations) by turning over cards in groups of three. The first player to empty their Pounce pile declares “stop!,” and points are scored.