How to Play Rolling Stone

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

Rolling Stone is a shedding card game for four to six players in which the goal is simple: get rid of every card in your hand before anyone else does. What makes it compelling is the punishment for failing to follow suit. Pick up a full trick and your hand swells just when you thought you were close to winning.

It plays quickly, needs no scorekeeping equipment beyond a pencil and paper, and rewards both card memory and a cool nerve under pressure. It is a natural choice for family evenings, holidays, and any gathering where you need a game that everybody can learn in five minutes but that still produces genuine tension.

A little history

Rolling Stone is sometimes listed under the German name Achtzig (or variants thereof), and similar trick-avoidance shedding games appear in central European card-game literature from the nineteenth century onward. Its precise origins are unclear, and no single definitive source establishes where or when the modern English form was standardised. It has been a fixture of British family card-game collections for generations and is documented in general card-game compendiums throughout the twentieth century.

Setting up

1. Remove cards from the deck so that each player receives exactly eight cards: for four players use the 8s, 9s, 10s, Jacks, Queens, Kings, and Aces (32 cards); for five players add the 7s (40 cards); for six players add the 6s (48 cards).
2. Shuffle the trimmed deck thoroughly.
3. Deal eight cards to each player, one at a time, face down.
4. Players pick up their hands and sort them by suit. No cards are placed face up and there is no trump suit.
5. Decide who leads the first trick: the player holding the Ace of spades leads first, or draw for highest card if that card is not in play.

How to play

1. The player chosen to lead places any single card face up in the centre to begin the trick.
2. Play proceeds clockwise. Each player in turn must play one card of the same suit as the card led.
3. If a player has no card of the led suit, that player picks up every card already played to the trick, adds them all to their hand, and the turn to lead passes to the player on their left.
4. If all players successfully play a card of the led suit, the trick is complete. All four to six cards played are removed from the game permanently.
5. The player who played the highest card of the led suit wins the completed trick and leads the next one. There are no trumps; only the led suit counts.
6. Card rank from highest to lowest: Ace, King, Queen, Jack, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6 (only ranks present in the trimmed deck apply).
7. Play continues until one player has no cards left in hand.
8. That player wins the round. All other players count the cards remaining in their hands and record that number as their penalty score for the round.
9. Shuffle the full trimmed deck again, deal fresh hands of eight, and begin the next round. The player who last picked up a trick in the previous round leads first.
10. Play as many rounds as agreed. The player with the lowest cumulative penalty score at the end wins the game.

Winning and scoring

A round ends the moment any player plays their final card. Every other player scores one penalty point per card still held in their hand. Completed tricks removed from the game count for nothing. The player who empties their hand scores zero for that round. After the agreed number of rounds, the player with the lowest total penalty score wins. A common session target is five rounds, but any number agreed before play begins is valid.

The fine points

The most frequent dispute concerns what counts as having no cards in the led suit. A player must play a card of the led suit if they hold even one; there is no option to pick up the trick strategically. If a player is later found to have played off-suit while holding the led suit, the standard ruling is that they must take back all cards played to that trick, add their wrongly played card to their hand, and play a legal card. If the trick has already been cleared, the penalty is to draw a number of cards from any player's hand at random equal to the number of cards in that trick.

A second common question is whether the player who picks up a trick must lead from their refreshed hand immediately or may reorganise first. The standard ruling is that reorganisation is permitted before leading; there is no time pressure. If two players simultaneously run out of cards on the same trick (which cannot happen under standard rules since only one player leads and the trick ends when one player cannot follow), the player who played their last card earlier in the clockwise sequence is the winner of the round.

How to win more often

• Lead from your longest suit as often as possible. The more cards of one suit you hold, the safer you are from picking up tricks in that suit, and the more likely you are to strip other players of their ability to follow.
• Count voids. Once you know you have no cards in a suit, you will pick up any trick led in that suit unless you can engineer the lead to stay elsewhere. Plan your leads to avoid triggering your own voids early.
• Save high cards in short suits. A single Ace in a suit you hold only one of is a liability: you cannot shed it by following, and if someone leads that suit you must play it or pick up the trick. Play it as soon as you safely lead that suit.
• Watch hand sizes. If an opponent is close to empty, avoid leading suits they are likely to be void in. Force them to pick up a late trick and delay their win.
• Do not panic about a big hand mid-game. Picking up a large trick is painful but survivable if you now hold a spread of suits. Use the new cards to fill voids and give yourself more flexibility on future leads.

Variations

Fixed Number of Rounds

Rather than playing to a points target, agree on exactly five or ten rounds before you start and whoever has the fewest penalty points at the end wins outright. This keeps session length predictable and suits younger players who tire of open-ended play.

Rolling Stone with Trumps

Before each round, turn the top card of the undealt stock (if any remains) face up to nominate a trump suit. A player who cannot follow suit may play a trump instead of picking up the trick; the highest trump played wins the trick and those cards are removed from play. This variant reduces the frequency of large pickups and suits groups who find the base game too punishing.

Four-Player Partnership

With exactly four players, partners sit opposite each other. Penalty cards are counted per partnership rather than per player, and the pair with fewer combined penalty cards wins each round. Partners may not communicate about their hands, but leading into your partner's known long suit is legal and encouraged.

Escalating Penalty

Each card picked up in a trick scores its face value rather than one point: number cards score their pip value, Jacks score 11, Queens 12, Kings 13, and Aces 14. This creates far more dramatic swings and makes picking up a trick containing Aces genuinely devastating. Best suited to experienced groups who want higher stakes in each round.

Rolling Stone: frequently asked questions