Paternoster Duel

Full rules

1. Overview
2. Which card is higher?
3. Setup
4. Where may a card go?
5. Your turn
6. End of the game
7. Tips for beginners
8. Variants
9. Balance
10. Where the ideas come from

Overview

Paternoster Duel is a race for two. Each of you plays with your own half of the deck – one takes the red cards, the other the black ones – and builds two piles of your own: one going up, one going down. Once per turn you may also slip a card onto one of your opponent's piles to push it along. Whoever plays their last card first wins – and whoever can't play enough cards on their turn loses at once.

• Players: 2 (4 in the Team duel variant).
• You need: one standard 52-card deck without jokers (two for the Team duel).

Paternoster Duel is an original game written for this site, the two-player counterpart to the cooperative Paternoster. It is new and has not been playtested yet.

Which card is higher?

The cards form one long ladder:

1. First the rank counts. The Ace counts 1 and is the lowest rank, then 2, 3 … 10, Jack (11), Queen (12) and King (13), the highest.
2. Only if the ranks are equal, the suit decides: ♦ < ♥ < ♠ < ♣ – diamonds lowest, then hearts, spades and clubs highest (the order from Skat).

A♦ < A♥ < A♠ < A♣ < 2♦ < 2♥ < … < Q♣ < K♦ < K♥ < K♠ < K♣

Every card has its own step on the ladder. The red player holds only diamonds and hearts, the black player only spades and clubs – so the two hands fill the ladder in turns.

Setup

1. Split the deck by colour: one of you takes the 26 red cards (♦ and ♥), the other the 26 black cards (♠ and ♣).
2. Shuffle your own cards and put them face down in front of you as your draw pile. Draw 6 cards: your hand. Don't show it.
3. Leave room for two piles in front of you: your up pile on the left, your down pile on the right. Both start empty.
4. Choose at random who begins; after that you take turns.

Where may a card go?

• Up pile: the new card must be higher than the top card.
• Down pile: the new card must be lower than the top card.
• Empty pile: any card may start it.

Only the top card of a pile counts.

The step back. On your own piles you may also go one step the "wrong" way: on your up pile the card of the same suit exactly one rank lower than the top card, on your down pile the card of the same suit exactly one rank higher. You may make at most one step back per turn.

You can only step back from a card of your own colour: if your opponent has put a card on your pile, you hold no card of its suit.

Example: Your up pile shows 9♥. You may play any higher card on it – and, as your step back, the 8♥. Your down pile shows 5♦: any lower card fits, and the 6♦ is your step back.

Your turn

1. Play at least two cards from your hand onto your own piles, one after the other – on the same pile or on both. You may play more. In the very first turn of the game, one card is enough.
2. Push (optional, once per turn): you may also play one card onto one of your opponent's piles – in that pile's direction and at most two ranks further than its top card: on their up pile a higher card with a rank at most two above, on their down pile a lower card with a rank at most two below. Not on an empty pile. The pushed card doesn't count towards your two cards; you may push before, between or after them.
3. Draw from your own draw pile until you have 6 cards again.

When your draw pile is empty, you only need to play one card per turn.

Example: Anna plays red, Ben black. Anna's up pile shows 5♥, her down pile J♦; she holds 6♦, 7♥, 4♥, 9♦, 10♥ and K♦. She plays the 6♦ on her up pile and the 10♥ on her down pile. Ben's down pile shows 10♠. Anna pushes: she puts her 9♦ on it – lower than the 10♠ and only one rank further. Now Ben's down pile has lost a step, and Anna got rid of a card she had no good place for. She draws three cards.

End of the game

• You win as soon as you have played your last card – your hand and your draw pile are empty.
• You lose at once if on your turn you can't play the cards you must play (two, or one in the first turn or when your draw pile is empty).

Most games end the second way: one player gets stuck, usually only a few cards short of the finish. For a match, play until one of you has won two games; the loser of a game begins the next.

Tips for beginners

• Push every turn. A card that fits badly on your own piles often fits your opponent's – and every step you push them costs them room.
• Push the pile they need. Watch which of their piles is still open and close it a little.
• Start at the ends. Open your up pile with a low card and your down pile with a high one.
• Guard your step backs. They only work on cards of your own colour – once your opponent covers a pile, that chance is gone.
• Don't rush. Playing more than two cards shrinks your options for the next turn, unless each card is a very small step.

Variants

• Friendly race: no pushing at all – each of you plays alone, and whoever gets stuck first loses.
• Long race: 7 cards in hand; far more games end with a player getting rid of all their cards.
• Hard push: a pushed card may go any distance. The games get short and fierce – a single high card can close a pile.
• Handicap: the stronger player plays with 5 cards in hand, or without pushing.
• Blitz duel: no turns – both of you play at the same time, as fast as you can, one card after the other, and draw back up to 6 whenever you like. You may push at most once between two cards played on your own piles. Nobody can move any more? Then whoever has fewer cards left (hand and draw pile) wins.
• Team duel (four players, two decks): red team against black team – each team gets all 52 red or all 52 black cards of both decks, shuffled together as one team draw pile. Partners sit opposite each other and share one up pile and one down pile; turns go round the table, so the teams alternate. Each player has their own hand of 6 and draws from the team pile. The two identical cards of a pair are equal, so a card may go on its twin. Partners may talk as in Paternoster: about the piles, never about ranks or suits. Pushing goes onto the other team's piles. The team whose player can't play enough loses; the team that plays all its cards first wins.

Balance

In a computer simulation with a simple strategy – 4000 games per rule – the player who began won 49% of the games thanks to the one-card first turn (without it, only 44%). Pushing pays: a player who pushed every turn beat one who never did in three games out of four. About one game in six ended with a player playing all 26 cards; with the Long race variant (7 cards) it was every second game, and with Hard push games lasted only about five turns each.

Where the ideas come from

The idea of a duel with rising and falling piles of your own, in which you may also play onto your opponent's piles, comes from The Game: Face to Face (Steffen Benndorf, Nürnberger-Spielkarten-Verlag, 2017). The rules here – one deck split into red and black, the ladder, the step back and the push – are our own.