Last night was a real life sisterchick girls night out! Staci made a yummy pizza fondue, we ate cookies, stalked people on facebook, talked about Twilight, blogging, kids and men boys men. Then as Mandi and I (the only ones with almost 2 year olds) started yawning…what was it about 8pm? Staci pulled out the cards and we started a game of NERTZ!
Nertz is a fast-paced fun and crazy card game that we used to play all the time in High School. I have memories of eight of us around our dining room table…twelve of us playing in the lobby of a church…ten of us playing in a hotel room on a youth group trip. I remember trash talking and high fives and tons of laughter.
So, to play it last night with my sisterchicks? Like coming home.
Wanna play? I’ll teach you and the next time you and your BFFs get together you can to try it out!
All you need is one deck of cards per person. Each deck should be unique. I like to collect cards on my travels for this very reason!
After you’ve shuffled, hand your deck to the person on your left…but don’t let go of your deck yet. Once everyone is holding hands via the decks someone shouts GO and the fun begins!
{We were so into NERTZ last night I didn’t take any pictures. So the kids help me recreate it this morning. Asa’s a whiz at solitare!}
Take your new deck and lay out the following:
-
- 1 stack of 13 with the 13th one facing up (your NERTZ pile)
- 4 individual cards facing up
Then you play a basic game of solitare. Begin placing cards in descending and order alternating colors on your 4 stacks. To get the cards you need, just use your remaining deck–flipping up every 3rd card to see if it is playable. If the card on top of your NERTZ pile is playable, play it and flip up the next card in the pile. If you come across an Ace, place it up above all your cards and begin to stack cards in order of that matching suit.
Now, are you ready for the twist?
In NERTZ everyone plays on everyone else’s Aces. Yes, that means, in our 5 person game last night we were all playing on TWENTY Aces.
TO WIN:
Be the first one to get rid of all the cards in your NERTZ pile…and yell “NERTZ!” when you do.
TO SCORE:
The first one to yell NERTZ gets 10 points. Then everyone counts up the cards (actual cards, not value) in their NERTZ pile–these will be negative points. To find the positive points, flip over all middle ace piles. Separate cards according to deck, find your cards and count the amount of cards. Add (subtract?) the cards and come up with your score!
(For example, if you have 5 cards left in your NERTZ pile and you stacked 15 cards on the Ace piles in the middle your score is 1o.)
So, any NERTZ players out there? Or are you willing to try it for the first time? If not, what’s your favorite card game?
linked to The Diaper Diaries’ Things I Love Thursday…because I love Nertz, Sisterchicks & the Diaper Diaries!
Gonna have to try this out! Thanks for the post!
This was always a family favorite! I love it. We haven’t played for years though 🙁 and I miss it.
The card game sounds very fun – but what sounds even more awesome is that fondue! Can’t wait to try that out, it’s a fav of ours! We just did fondue with bread and pepper strips for “dinner” on Saturday and it was fantastic 🙂 Trader Joe’s swiss beer fondue is a great “quick” fondue if you don’t have all those ingredients on hand to make it from scratch.
Love this Amanda! It really was such a fun night and playing Nertz just topped it off. Such good memories 🙂
we LOVE Nertz!!!! so much fun!
We love, love, LOVE Nertz! Have you ever played with teams?
oooh fun! do tell!
Well, I guess it would be more like pairs than teams…one person plays the piles and the other one flips the cards. It gets pretty chaotic when you have 12 people standing around a table playing and shouting to their partners -chaotic, but VERY fun!
That’s the way we always played!
We played where you doubled cards left in nertz pile…..ex:have 5 left in pile, x2…..so minus10 off ur aces cards
My family, too! And that rule seems to be substantiated by at least one other online site. See http://dkmgames.com/Nertz/NertzHelp.php.
Oh! I totally want to play this with the sisterchicks!!!
oh the memories- i love that game!
I forgot about Nertz and I learned it from you guys! That is the best game, I am so glad you posted the rules so that I can relive the fun. I love cards. I think my favorites are hand and foot, spades, and if you have plenty of time to kill then Shanghai.
I miss and love playing that game. Puppet Festivals, Nertz – those were the days.
My family (extended) would love this one. I’m bookmarking it for the next family get together.
Glad you ladies had such a fun time!
Awe! Bringing back memories!! This is still one of our family favorites and still play it at gatherings. I’m not sure anyone in the family loves it quite as much as me though 🙂
that’s one of our favorite games too! it’s a classic.
Yet another reason I am a true sisterchick!! I love this game and have played it for years 😉
Favorite game EVER!!! 🙂 We’ve played two-on-a-team before, where one person mans the piles, while the other person mans the remainder deck, both helping each other out, of course. Played this way, we’ve had over 20 people playing at once!!
I’m totally behind on my Reader and trying furiously to catch up 🙂 but when I saw this post I *had* to stop and applaud! I **LOVE** Nertz!! We just got back from vacay with my sister’s family…the adults stayed up late every night playing! It’s SO addicting 🙂
Hertz sounds a lot like Dutch Blitz!!
I’m so excited I found this!! I played this game a couple months ago but the people who taught it to me called it cantaloupe. I’ve been wanting to play again but definitely needed the instructions. Thanks for posting!
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I tend not to drop a lot of responses, but I browsed some responses here How To Play Nertz {The Best Solitaire Card Game Ever} | ohamanda.com. I do have a few questions for you if it’s allright. Could it be simply me or does it look like some of these comments come across like they are coming from brain dead individuals? 😛 And, if you are posting at additional online social sites, I’d like to follow you. Could you make a list of the complete urls of all your public pages like your twitter feed, Facebook page or linkedin profile?
Great Post! Glad I found your blog! Will be back for more! Thanks
I definitely need to try this one. I teach a middle school class for kids with significant mental health issues so always looking for something that will get them interacting and having fun together.
Thanks, you explained it like I remembered it. It’s a good game, fast moving, almost like the card game Speed. Enjoy!
However most of the people have the ability to gamble recreationally, there’ll continually be a group that’ll be struggling to manage themselves.
I was born in the early 70’s and learned this game when I was a kid. It’s a go to game when my family and I all get together. It’s a lot of fun and face paced and I’m glad to hear others play it too. If you like the fast paced kinda card game you should try “Animal” Everyone picks out an animal they want to be called for example…dog, cat, hippo, parrot. Everyone has their own deck of cards and you play your cards like “Slap Jack” but instead of calling out “Slap Jack” when you have matching cards you call out the persons animal. The person who has all the cards in the end wins. It’s super crazy with a lot of people but it’s much more fun.