Snap

Slapjack, also known as Slaps, is a simple standard-deck card game, generally played among children. It can often be a child’s first introduction to playing cards. The game is related to Egyptian Ratscrew and is also sometimes known as Heart Attack. It is also related to the simpler ‘slap’ card games often called snap.

A 52-card deck is divided into face-down stacks as equally as possible between all players. One player removes the top card of his stack and places it face-up on the playing surface within reach of all players. The players take turns doing this in a clockwise manner until a jack is placed on the pile. At this point, any and all players may attempt to slap the pile with the hand they used to place the card; whoever covers the stack with his or her hand first takes the pile, shuffles it, and adds it to the bottom of his stack. If another player puts his card over the jack before it is slapped, the jack and the cards underneath can’t be taken by a player until the next jack is revealed. When a player has run out of cards, he has one more chance to slap a jack and get back in the game, but if he fails, he is out. Gameplay continues with hands of this sort until one player has acquired all of the cards. In a popular variation with a regular deck, the person covering the cards must simultaneously say “Slapjack!” If the person fails to say this, he or she does not get the pile. Additionally, if the player covers the pile and says “Slapjack”, and the card is not a jack, then the other players get to divide the pile evenly among themselves.