Flinch (card game)

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Flinch is a card game, played with a custom deck, invented in 1901 by A.J. Patterson. This deck has 150 cards, consisting of ten sets numbered from one to fifteen. Some variations use a 144-card deck.

[edit] Rules of play

In this description, masculine pronouns are used for convenience only.

The cards are dealt face down.

The first player turns over his top card and if it is a one it is put in the middle of the table; if it is not a one it is put face up so that everyone can see it. The second player takes his top card, and again if it is not a one it is put face up; and so forth for the rest of the players.

The first player goes again: if his face-up card happens to be a two it can be placed in the middle, on top of the one; or, if the face-up card is either one more or one less than another player's face-up card, that card can be placed on top of the other player's card. For example, if the first player's face-up card is a seven, it can be placed on another player's six or eight. If the player is able to get rid of his face-up card in one of these ways, he turns up his next card and attempts to discard it using the same methods. He continues until he is unable to discard any more cards. Play then continues with the next player.

Note that cards may be placed in the middle only in ascending order, starting at one and continuing to fifteen, whereas cards may be placed on other players' cards in either ascending or descending order.