How to Play Palace

By Jaques of London · Est. 1795 · Updated 2026-08-17

Palace is a shedding card game for 2 to 6 players in which the goal is simple: get rid of every card in your hand before anyone else does. The tension comes from a three-layer structure, where you burn through your hand first, then play face-up cards you can see, and finally gamble on face-down cards you cannot. That final blind phase produces the reversals and groans that keep players coming back.

The game travels well, needs only a standard deck, and scales comfortably from two players to a full table of six. It is a fixture at kitchen tables, on camping trips, and in student common rooms across the UK, valued for rules light enough to teach in minutes but with enough decision-making to reward experience.

A little history

Palace's precise origins are unclear. It belongs to a broad family of shedding games that includes Shithead and similar titles documented across northern Europe and the English-speaking world from at least the latter half of the twentieth century. The name, card layout, and special-card rules vary noticeably by region, which suggests the game evolved independently in multiple places rather than spreading from a single source. No authoritative early publication of a fixed ruleset has been identified.

Setting up

1. Shuffle the deck thoroughly and seat all players around a flat surface.
2. Deal each player three cards face down in a row in front of them. Players must not look at these cards yet.
3. Deal each player three cards face up, placed on top of their three face-down cards so each face-up card covers one face-down card.
4. Deal each player a hand of three cards, which they may look at immediately.
5. Place the remaining deck in the centre as the draw pile and turn the top card face up beside it to start the discard pile.
6. Players may now look at their hand and, before play begins, swap any cards from their hand with their own face-up table cards to optimise their layout. Once the first player takes a turn, no further swaps are permitted.

How to play

1. The player who holds the lowest black card (or by agreement the youngest player) goes first. Play proceeds clockwise.
2. On your turn, play one or more cards from your hand onto the discard pile. The card or cards played must be equal to or higher in rank than the current top card of the discard pile. Aces are high.
3. You may play multiple cards of the same rank in a single turn, for example three sevens at once.
4. After playing, draw replacement cards from the draw pile to keep at least three cards in your hand, until the draw pile is exhausted.
5. If you cannot play a legal card, you must pick up the entire discard pile and add it to your hand. Your turn then ends.
6. Special cards and their effects: a 2 resets the discard pile so the next player may play any card; a 10 burns the discard pile (remove it from the game entirely) and the same player takes another turn; four cards of the same rank played consecutively (whether in one turn or accumulated across consecutive turns) also burn the pile and the player who completes the set takes another turn.
7. Once your hand is empty and the draw pile is exhausted, you move on to playing your face-up table cards. Play proceeds exactly as with hand cards.
8. Once your face-up cards are gone, you play your face-down cards. You must pick one blind, without looking at it first, and place it directly onto the discard pile. If it is a legal play, it stays. If it is not legal, you must pick up the discard pile plus that card into your hand and resume playing from hand before returning to face-down cards.
9. A player who empties all three layers, hand, face-up, and face-down, is out of the game. The last player still holding cards loses and is named the Palace loser for that round.

Winning and scoring

Palace has no points. The winner is the first player to shed every card across all three layers. In practice, play often continues until only one player remains holding cards, and that player is designated the loser rather than a single winner being declared. In repeated sessions, players commonly keep a running tally of how many times each person has been left holding cards, with the player on the fewest losses declared the overall champion after an agreed number of rounds.

The fine points

The most frequent dispute concerns the four-of-a-kind burn when cards accumulate across consecutive players rather than in a single turn. The standard ruling is that if the top four cards of the discard pile are all the same rank, regardless of who played them, the pile burns immediately as soon as the fourth card lands, and the player who placed that final card takes a free turn. If that player has no cards left after the burn, the free turn is forfeit and they are simply out.

A second common dispute involves face-down cards: some house rules allow a player to peek at a face-down card before deciding which to play. This is not standard. The correct ruling is that face-down cards are played fully blind with no prior inspection. Additionally, when a player is forced to pick up the discard pile while still holding face-up or face-down table cards, they must play down their entire recovered hand before they may return to their table cards, even if the hand cards are all lower than the pile they just picked up.

How to win more often

• During the swap phase before play starts, move your highest-value cards (aces, kings, tens, and twos) into your face-up table positions so you have the strongest possible cards available late in the game when options are limited.
• Save twos and tens for moments when the pile is stacked with high cards you cannot beat. A ten that burns the pile when you are nearly stuck is worth far more than playing it early.
• When you have a choice of legal cards to play, favour playing your mid-range cards from hand and preserving your power cards. Dumping nines and eights early keeps your special cards intact.
• If you are close to clearing your hand, be mindful of the four-of-a-kind rule. Deliberately completing a four-of-a-kind burn not only clears the pile but hands you an extra turn, which can accelerate your exit from the game.
• Watch opponents who are down to table cards. If a player is on face-down cards and the pile is high, resist the urge to play a two and reset it. Keeping the pile high maximises the chance they flip a card that cannot match it and must pick up.

Variations

Palace with Jokers

Add one or both Jokers to the deck. A Joker acts as a wild card and can be played on anything. When a Joker is played, the next player must start a fresh pile from any card they choose. This variant adds further unpredictability and suits players who find the standard game resolves too quickly.

No Reset Rule

In this stricter variant the two card still resets the pile, but a player who plays a two must immediately play a second card on top of it, effectively setting the new floor themselves. If they cannot play a second card, they pick up the pile. This rewards players who combine a two with another card and punishes those who play a two as a last resort with nothing to follow it.

Seven Reversal

A widely played regional rule gives the seven a special power: when a seven is played, the direction of play temporarily reverses so that cards must now go equal to or lower than seven rather than equal to or higher, until someone plays another seven or the pile is burned. This significantly disrupts late-game strategy and adds a further layer of timing decisions.

Large Group Variant (5 to 6 Players)

With five or six players, shuffle two standard 52-card decks together before dealing. Keep all other rules identical. The double deck prevents the draw pile from exhausting too early and keeps the special-card mechanics meaningful across the larger table. Some groups also increase the face-up and face-down rows to four cards each when using two decks, which extends play time and increases the blind-card gamble at the end.

Palace: frequently asked questions