Nerts / Racing Demon
Quick Pitch
Nerts is a fast, chaotic card game where everyone plays solitaire at the same time — racing to empty their pile before anyone else does.
Hook
Everyone grabs their own deck and plays solitaire simultaneously — but in the middle of the table there's a shared area where anyone can stack cards, and you're all competing to build the same foundations at once. Cards fly, hands crash into the center, and someone always yells "NERTS!" when they empty their pile. It's solitaire turned into a sport.
Equipment Needed
- One standard deck per player — each deck should have a distinct back design or color so cards can be sorted after the round
- Paper and pencil for scoring (optional)
Tip: Dollar stores often sell decks in multipacks with different back colors — perfect for Nerts.
Setup
Each player, with their own shuffled deck:
- Deal 13 cards face-down into a pile on your left — this is your Nerts pile. Flip the top card face-up.
- Deal 4 cards face-up in a row to your right — these are your tableau columns
- Hold the remaining cards in your hand face-down — this is your stock
Place a shared open area in the center of the table — this is where the foundations will be built.
Rules
Objective
Be the first player to empty your Nerts pile, OR score the most points when the round ends.
The Foundations (Center of Table)
- Any player can start a foundation by playing an Ace to the center
- Once an Ace is played, any player can continue building that foundation: 2, then 3, and so on up to King, in the same suit
- Every card you successfully play to a foundation scores 1 point for you
Your Tableau (Your Four Columns)
- You build your personal columns in descending order, alternating colors — just like Klondike solitaire
- For example, a red 8 can be placed on a black 9
- You can move cards between your tableau columns
- When a tableau column is empty, you can fill it with any available card
Your Nerts Pile
- The top card of your Nerts pile is always available to play
- You can play the top Nerts card to a foundation, or onto a tableau column
- When you play the top card, flip over the next one
- Emptying your Nerts pile ends the round immediately
Your Stock
- Flip cards from your stock three at a time (or one at a time for beginners)
- The top card of the flipped group is available to play to a foundation or your tableau
- When you reach the end of your stock, flip the whole thing over and go through it again
- There is no limit to how many times you can cycle through your stock
Calling Nerts
When your Nerts pile is empty, call "Nerts!" — the round ends immediately. Everyone stops playing.
Scoring
- Each card you played to a foundation = +1 point
- Each card still in your Nerts pile = −2 points
- Play multiple rounds; first player to reach an agreed total (50 is common) wins
Expert Player
Tips
Prioritize your Nerts pile over everything. Every card you clear from your Nerts pile is progress toward winning. Playing from your stock or tableau to the center is good, but clearing the Nerts pile is the win condition.
Scan the center constantly. New Aces and new numbers appear rapidly. The player who spots the open foundation slot first gets the point. Peripheral vision and spatial awareness matter more than speed alone.
Don't cycle your stock pointlessly. If you can't play anything to the foundations or advance your Nerts pile, cycling your stock does nothing useful. Reorganize your tableau first to open new plays.
Keep your tableau lean. Long, locked-up tableau columns trap cards you need to move. Try to keep columns playable rather than stacking dead weight on top.
The endgame accelerates. When one player has two or three cards left in their Nerts pile, everyone plays faster and more aggressively. That's when mistakes happen — and when you can pull ahead by staying calm.
Variations
- One at a time: Flip stock cards one at a time instead of three — easier and slightly slower
- No recycling: You only get one pass through the stock before it's dead — much harder, creates real pressure to play efficiently
- Team Nerts: Partners sit across the table and share a Nerts pile, alternating which one plays to it; coordination becomes the challenge
Learn More — History & Origins
History & Origins
Nerts is an American folk card game that appears to have developed independently in several places under different names — "Racing Demon" in Britain, "Pounce" in some American regions, "Squirt" in others. The core idea of competitive simultaneous solitaire is intuitive enough that it was probably invented multiple times by people who wanted to make Klondike faster and more social.
The earliest documented references to Racing Demon appear in Britain in the early 20th century, and the game spread through families and dormitories as a fast, inexpensive way to involve a whole group of people in a single card game without needing a full-table game like Poker or Bridge. The American name "Nerts" seems to have emerged in the mid-20th century, possibly as a phonetic corruption of "nertz" or a play on "nerds."
Cultural Context
Nerts occupies an interesting niche: it's a genuinely competitive game that can be learned in five minutes, requires no complex rules memory during play, and scales easily from two players to eight. Most games that satisfy those criteria are luck-heavy. Nerts is unusual in that skill matters considerably — experienced players develop faster pattern recognition, better tableau management, and more effective center-scanning — while the chaos of simultaneous play keeps beginners from feeling totally outclassed.
The game rewards a particular type of alertness: not deep strategy, but rapid tactical response to a constantly changing shared environment. It often produces a kind of joyful chaos that makes it a reliable hit at family gatherings and camps, where the sound of cards slapping down and someone triumphantly yelling "Nerts!" is part of the experience.