How to play
Karma
A shedding game for two to four players with one standard deck. You are trying to get rid of everything you hold, and to not be the last one who still has cards. Read this once and you can play.
The object
Empty your cards. The last player still holding any is the Karma, and they wear it until the next deal. Everyone else is simply out and safe.
The deal
Everyone gets eleven cards in three zones: three face down on the table, never looked at; three face up on top of them, where the whole table can see; and five in your hand.
Face down. Nobody looks, you included.
Face up on top of them. Everyone can see.
Yours alone, and the only zone you refill.
Before the first card goes down you may swap any hand card with any of your face-up cards, as often as you like. Put your strongest cards face up. You play them at the end, when the deck has run out and nothing is coming to rescue you.
Your turn: beat it or eat it
Play a card equal to or higher than the top of the pile. Ace is high. Suits count for nothing — a nine of clubs and a nine of hearts are the same card as far as the pile is concerned. If you hold more than one of a rank you may lay them all down together.
Nine to beat.
Jack is higher.
Seven is lower.
While the deck lasts, draw back up to three cards at the end of your turn. Once it is empty you play on with what you have.
Cannot play? Then you take the entire pile into your hand, and your turn ends there. Nobody enjoys this, which is the point of the game.
The two is wild
A two goes on absolutely anything. But it does not end your turn — you then play a second card straight on top of it, and that card is what the next player has to beat. A two also puts the table back the right way up if a five had turned it — unless the card you follow with is itself a five.
Next player must beat the seven.
The five turns the table
A five goes on anything, the way a two or a ten does — hold one and you are never truly stuck. And it reverses the game: from that moment everyone must play equal or lower instead of higher. Your hoarded aces and kings are suddenly dead weight, and the threes you could not shift become the best cards you own.
Now going down.
Three is lower.
Nine is too high.
Four in one go burns
Lay down all four of a rank in a single turn and the pile burns — every card in it out of the game — and you go again on a clean table.
The endgame
When your hand is empty you play from your face-up cards instead. When those are gone you are down to the three you have never seen. You play them one a turn, flipped blind.
Winning
Clear all three zones and you are out. The rest carry on without you. When only one player is still holding cards the round is over, and they are the Karma. Shuffle, deal, and give them the chance to hand it on.
Dead heats
If the deck has run out and nobody can burn or go out for eighty turns, the round is called and whoever holds the most cards takes the Karma. This is a real position, not a formality: once every two and ten has been burned, two aces can circle the table forever.