Rat Bastard 17 Rules

Card Values range from 0 to 10. Wild cards can be any value from 1 to 10 of the players’ choice.
The objective of the game is to get rid of all his cards.

Deal

Deal each player three cards face down and two cards face up as shown below. These five cards will be referred to as the ‘hole cards.’ Neither player may look at their face down hole cards until they are used. The hole cards may not be used until all cards in the players hand have been used.


Deal five more cards to each player. These are the cards in their hand and the players may each look at their own five cards. The players may, at this point only, choose to replace one or both of the two face up hole cards with any of the five in their hand. Place the remaining cards aside. These cards form the deck.

To determine who goes first:
Each player takes a single card from the top of the deck. If the players have cards of equal value, both players pick another card and repeat until one has higher than the other. The player with the highest card goes first. Cards picked this way are then discarded.

Play

The game begins with each player putting a card down alternately in turns. While cards remain in the deck, each player must have a minimum of five cards in their hand at all times. If a player has less than five cards in his hand he must immediately pick another from the deck.

Until all cards in the deck are gone:

As each card is put down, its value is added to the total value of any previous cards. After a player puts his card down he must say this total value. The total amount in the centre may not go over seventeen.

If a player cannot go lower than or equal to seventeen then he must pick up all the cards in the pile. The other player then puts a new card down starting from zero again.

If seventeen is reached, all cards in the pile are discarded and the player that reached seventeen puts a new card down starting from zero again.

When all cards in the deck are gone:

When seventeen is reached, the player that did not reach seventeen must pick up cards from the top of the pile until they have five in their hand. Any remaining cards are discarded.

While a player has no cards in his hand, he may use his hole cards.

Only the outer hole cards may be used in each turn, i.e. any hole card that has a card on both its’ left and right may not be used. If the total goes over seventeen when using a hole card, that player must pick up cards from the top of the pile up to a maximum of five cards in their hand.

When a player uses all his/her hole cards:

The player wins when all his hole cards are used. He then must call the other player a ‘Rat Bastard.’