Rules of	the	Game
1. The deck of cards starts out as 52 cards, 13 of each suit numbered from 2 to 14. (Aces high at 14). The initial ordering
does not matter, but it must be the same from new game to new game.
2. Each game starts with a brand new deck, shuffled once. The shuffling is random.
3. Each player is dealt half the deck (26 cards), getting every other card in the shuffled deck. These unplayed cards are
kept in a stack.
4. Each player has stack of used cards, won from a played round. This used stack starts out empty for each player, of
course.
5. The game continues until a player has no cards to play a round with. Similarly, if a player does not have sufficient
cards to complete a round of “war”, then they lose the game.
6. For each round, the players compare the top cards in their hands. The player with the greater card takes both. 2 ©B.	Levine
7. When player 1 wins, he pushes the played cards to his used card stack. He must use the following order: push the
cards in the table stack (if any), then push his card, and then push player 2’s card.
8. When player 2 wins, she pushes the played cards to her used card stack. She must use the following order: push the
cards in the table stack (if any), then push her card, and then push player 1’s card. If both players always put player
1’s card first, the game will never end (try it!)
9. When the played cards are of equal value (suits don’t matter), then before deciding a winner, each player pushes the
already compared cards and two more cards to a table stack. The order is player 1’s three cards and then player 2’s
three cards on top. At this point, we go loop back to Step 6, which might result in another tie and three more cards on
the table stack. As stated above, if a player can’t complete a round of war, they lose.
10. At any point in the above, when a player runs out of cards in their used pile, they can move the cards in their used pile
to the used pile, but the order must not change