Pesten

Pesten (lit. “Bullying”) is a Dutch card game similar to Uno in which players must play cards from their hand into a pile in the center of the table with the objective of being the first to empty their hand.

As is common with card games of this sort, there are many variations of the rules and things you can change to alter the game. Here is the basic set of rules that I was taught:

Setup

A standard deck of cards including the Jokers is shuffled and a hand of 7 cards are dealt to each player. Players should keep their hand private. The remaining cards are placed face-down in a stack in the middle of the table. One card is drawn from the top of the card stack and placed face-up next to the stack; this is the starting card of the play stack. If the card is a Joker then it must be re-shuffled back into the stack and another card chosen. It is up to the players to decide who goes first and in which order players will go (clockwise or counter-clockwise).

Play

During a players turn, they may place one card from their hand face-up onto the play stack as long as the card from their hand matches either the suit or the number of the top-most card on the play stack. If a player has no suitable card, they draw one from the card stack and either play it if it is suitable, or end their turn.

However, there are a number of cards which have special rules that affect the game when they are played:

• 2 - The next player must pick up two cards from the card stack
• 7 - The current player must go again
• 8 - The next player’s turn is skipped
• J - The current player may “change” the active suit
• A - The order of players is reversed
• Joker - The next player must pick up five cards from the card stack, and the Joker acts as a wildcard meaning any card may be played next

It is important to note that cards which cause another player to have to pick up a card can be stacked and the effect passed on to the next player. For example, if someone plays a Joker and you have a 2, you can place the 2 on the Joker to cause the player after you to have to pick up 7 cards should they not have a way to continue the stack. A player who is forced to pick up cards as a result of these cards continues their turn as normal (they are not skipped).

Winning

The first player to empty their hand of cards is declared the winner. Players may keep playing to determine additional winners, but play generally stops when there are only two players remaining.