How to Play Snip Snap Snorem

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

Snip Snap Snorem is a lively matching card game for three to eight players in which the entire deck is dealt out and players race to shed their cards by matching ranks. Each set of four matching cards triggers a short chant as successive players add their copies, and the tension builds because you cannot play out of turn: you must wait, sometimes painfully, while opponents claim the calls ahead of you.

Its appeal is broad. The rules take under two minutes to explain, the chant gives younger players a satisfying ritual, and the penalty system keeps everyone engaged even after they have been caught holding cards. It plays well at kitchen tables, in classrooms, and at family gatherings where you need something that works across a wide age range without any reading or arithmetic.

A little history

Snip Snap Snorem appears in English card-game literature at least as far back as the eighteenth century and is referenced in several Victorian-era household game compendiums as a domestic parlour game. Its origins beyond that are unclear. The distinctive three-word chant gives the game its name and is its most recognisable feature across all historical sources, though the precise rules recorded vary slightly from one compendium to the next. It is traditionally regarded as a British game, but similar rank-matching shedding games exist across Europe under different names.

Setting up

1. Seat all players around a table so everyone can see the central play area.
2. Choose a dealer by any agreed method; the dealer role can pass clockwise each round.
3. Shuffle the full 52-card deck thoroughly.
4. Deal all cards out one at a time, face down, clockwise. Unequal hands are fine: some players will hold one extra card, and that is normal.
5. Players pick up their cards and sort them by rank without showing others.

How to play

1. The player to the dealer's left goes first and may play any single card from their hand face up to the centre of the table. This card starts a new set.
2. Play passes clockwise. Each player in turn must play a card of the same rank as the card on top of the pile if they hold one. If they do not hold a matching card, they pass and play moves on.
3. When a player matches the first card of a set, they place it on the pile and call 'Snip'.
4. When a player matches to make three cards of that rank, they call 'Snap'.
5. When a player completes the set of four cards of that rank, they call 'Snorem'.
6. The player who called 'Snorem' wins that set. They collect no cards as a prize; instead they earn the right to start the next set by playing any card they choose from their hand.
7. Any player who is caught failing to play a card they legally could have played must pay a forfeit to each other player. The standard forfeit is one counter, token, or matchstick agreed before play begins.
8. Play continues, with new sets being started by whoever called the last 'Snorem', until one player runs out of cards entirely.

Winning and scoring

The first player to play their last card wins the hand. In a single-hand game that player is the outright winner. In a scoring game, all remaining players count the cards left in their hands and pay one forfeit token per card to the winner, or into a central pool as agreed before play. The player with the most tokens after an agreed number of hands, or the last player with tokens remaining if a fixed stake is used, wins overall.

The fine points

The most common dispute concerns the obligation to play. The rule is strict: if you hold a card matching the current rank, you must play it when your turn arrives. You may not hold it back to avoid giving an opponent 'Snorem'. If another player spots the concealed match, the holder pays a forfeit to every player at the table, not just the one who caught them. Because of this, it is worth agreeing before play whether players are allowed to check the discard pile to count how many cards of a rank have already appeared, or whether only the current visible top card may be referenced.

A secondary edge case arises when the deck has not dealt evenly and some players hold one more card than others. This is entirely normal and requires no adjustment: those players simply have a marginally harder task in going out first, which is a natural consequence of the deal. There is no redeal or swap. If a player accidentally sees another's card during the deal, the standard ruling is to continue without penalty unless deliberate cheating is established.

How to win more often

• Track which ranks have had one or two cards played and prioritise holding cards in those ranks: you are more likely to be able to call 'Snap' or 'Snorem' and earn the right to start the next set.
• When you win a set and choose the opening card for the next one, lead a rank of which you hold two or more copies. You will be able to respond quickly when the set comes back around to you.
• Avoid leading a rank where you hold only one card: you will have to wait the whole circuit before you can contribute again, giving faster players more turns.
• Pay close attention to the cards played. Counting how many of each rank remain live tells you which sets you can complete and which are already lost to opponents.
• In a penalty-token game, going out first matters less than minimising the cards in your hand at the end. If you cannot win outright, focus on shedding high-card-count ranks before the game ends.

Variations

Jig

Jig is a direct elaboration of Snip Snap Snorem in which the chant is extended to four calls: 'Snip', 'Snap', 'Snorem', 'Jig'. To accommodate this, two standard decks are shuffled together and the game is played with eight cards per rank rather than four. The player who completes all eight cards of a rank by calling 'Jig' starts the next set. It plays best with five or more players and runs considerably longer than the base game.

Earl of Coventry

In this traditional variant each card played must be accompanied by a rhyming line rather than a fixed chant. The first player to a rank says 'There's as good as ever was seen', the second says 'There's another as good as he', the third says 'There's the best of all the three', and the fourth completes with 'And there's the Earl of Coventry'. Players who cannot recall the correct line on their turn pay a forfeit. The rhyme element slows the game slightly but adds a memory challenge that suits older children and adults.

Continuous scoring across rounds

Rather than settling forfeits at the end of each hand, this scoring variant has players accumulate debt across an agreed number of hands before any tokens change hands. Each player records cards remaining at the end of every hand, totals them at the end of the session, and the player with the lowest cumulative card count wins. This format rewards consistency over a lucky single hand and works well when players want a longer, more strategic session.

Pass permitted

A gentler version sometimes used with younger or less experienced players allows any player to pass on their turn even if they hold a matching card, without incurring a penalty. This removes the watchfulness element and the risk of forfeits, which makes the game quicker to learn but significantly reduces the strategic tension. It is best treated as a stepping stone before introducing the standard 'must play' obligation.

Snip Snap Snorem: frequently asked questions