Idiot Game Rules

(Above is a set up of the game Idiot)

Card Game Rules

Idiot, or Palace, is a trick-taking card game for two to four players. The game requires a standard 52 playing card deck and is suitable for ages 8 and up. In Idiot, 3s are low and Aces are high. The objective of Idiot is to not be the last person with cards.

For more trick taking games, check out our guides for Euchre and Bridge.

If you are looking for cards to play Idiot with, check out a standard deck here or one of our newest arrivals here.

You may find a free online version of Idiot here. 

Set Up

To set up a game of Idiot, players need to form a circle around a stable playing area. Before gameplay can begin, every player must draw a card from a shuffled deck. The player with the highest card becomes the first dealer. Ties are broken by a redraw. The dealer then shuffles the deck and passes out nine cards to each player. The first three cards are faced down. The next three are placed faced up on top of the previous cards. The last three cards are the player’s hand and are placed faced up to the side of the other six. The remaining deck forms the Stock. 

Before the start, every player has the opportunity to exchange any of the cards in their hand with any of their three faced up cards. 

How to Play

The player left of the dealer begins by placing a card in the center of the gameplay area. Going clockwise, players try to outrank or equal the previous card played with cards in their hand. If they cannot do so, they must take the entire center pile. A player must have three cards in their hand at all times. Players replace cards that they play with cards from the Stock.

In Idiot, 5s, 2s, and 10s are special cards. 

After the Stock is exhausted and the player’s hand is empty, they move onto the three flipped over cards. After playing the three top cards, the player then blindly plays the three down facing cards. After flipping over a down facing card, they must play it before flipping over another card. Once all of their cards are played, they are out. The last person out is the Idiot.

For more information, check out pagat's article here.

Looking for more card games to play?  Check out this article:

40+ Great Card Games For All Occasions

About the author: John Taylor is a content writer and freelancer through the company Upwork.com. You may view his freelancing profile here. He has a B. A. in English, with a specialty in technical writing, from Texas A&M University and a M. A. in English from the University of Glasgow. You may view his previous articles about card games here and his LinkedIn profile here.