Quick Rules

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• Both players race simultaneously - there are no turns, everything happens in real time.
• Play a card from your hand onto either center pile if it's exactly one rank higher or lower than the top card there (suit doesn't matter).
• Both players slap their own draw pile the instant neither can make a move, to restart the center piles.
• Keep playing cards as fast as you can from your hand and side piles onto the center - there's no waiting your turn.
• First player to get rid of every card in their hand and side piles wins.

How to Play (Quick Overview)

1. 1

   Split a standard 52-card deck evenly between the two players, 26 cards each.

2. 2

   Each player deals 5 cards face down in a row in front of themselves as their "side piles" (flipping the top card of each face up), keeps the rest as their draw pile ("the spit pile"), and both players place one card face down in the middle - these become the two center piles once flipped.

3. 3

   Both players count down together and flip their own center card face up at the same time to start.

4. 4

   From that moment, both players play simultaneously and continuously: place a card from your hand or the face-up top of any side pile onto either center pile, as long as it's exactly one rank higher or lower than that center pile's current top card (suit doesn't matter, and rank wraps around from King to Ace).

5. 5

   Whenever a side pile's face-up card is played, flip the next card of that pile face up so it's always ready to play.

6. 6

   The instant both players agree neither can make any legal move, both slap their own draw pile at the same time and flip a new card from each draw pile onto the two center piles to keep the game moving.

Objective

Be the first player to get rid of every card from your hand and side piles by playing as fast as possible onto the two shared center piles.

Setup

Split a standard 52-card deck evenly, 26 cards to each of the two players. Each player deals out 5 face-down piles in a row in front of themselves (“side piles”), then flips the top card of each pile face up. The remaining 21 cards become each player’s personal draw pile, sometimes called the “spit pile,” kept face down and held in hand or set to one side.

Each player then takes one card from their draw pile and places it face down in the middle of the table between them - these will become the two center piles once the game starts.

How to Play

Both players count down together (a common call is “1, 2, 3, Speed!”) and flip their center card face up at the same moment. From that instant, both players act simultaneously and continuously - there’s no such thing as turns in Speed.

At any moment, either player may play a card from their hand or from the face-up top of any of their 5 side piles onto either center pile, as long as it’s exactly one rank higher or lower than that center pile’s current top card. Suit doesn’t matter at all, and rank wraps around, so a King can be played onto an Ace and vice versa.

Whenever a side pile’s face-up card gets played, immediately flip the next card underneath it face up, so there’s always something ready to play from every side pile.

If both players run out of legal moves at the same time - neither can play anything onto either center pile - both players slap their own draw pile at once, then flip a fresh card from each draw pile onto the two center piles to restart play.

Scoring

Speed has no point score - it’s a pure race with no partial credit for progress made.

Winning

The first player to completely empty both their hand/draw pile and all 5 side piles wins the game immediately.

Variations

• Spit: the traditional name for this game in many regions; rules are essentially identical to Speed under either name.
• Multi-deck / more players: some groups adapt Speed for more than 2 players using additional decks and more center piles, though the core simultaneous, no-turns structure gets considerably harder to track with more people.
• No re-slap restart: some house rules let either player restart the center piles alone as soon as they personally see no legal move, without needing agreement from the other player.

History

Speed (also widely known as Spit) developed as a fast-paced variant within the broader family of simultaneous, no-turns card games, with no single documented inventor - most likely emerging informally sometime in the 20th century among players looking for a faster alternative to traditional turn-based matching games.

Fun Fact

Because Speed has no formal turn order at all - both players act continuously and simultaneously - it’s frequently cited as one of the fastest possible card games to actually finish, with skilled players sometimes clearing an entire deck in well under a minute.

More to Explore

• Variations →
• History →
• Fun Fact →