Shit On Your Neighbor

The card game Shit On Your Neighbor is brilliant in its simplicity.

All players set three (3) or four (4) piles of chips in front of themselves (this could be piles of 5 dimes, 3 quarters -- whatever the Dealer decides). Each player is dealt one card. The object is to not have the lowest card at the table at the end of the hand -- in this game, the Ace is the lowest card.

In turn, starting from the Dealer's left, player can elect to keep his card, or swap with the person on their left. The player to the left has no choice but to swap, unless that player holds a King, which is a "blocker" card. If you have a King and the person to your right attempts to trade with you, you may shout "flauxbam" and present the King to their line of sight in whatever demonstrative ninja move you care to express. The player on the receiving end of the flauxbam is stuck with their (generally low-ranking) card.

As the last player to act, if the Dealer wishes to trade, he trades with the top card remaining on the deck. (If this card is a King, the deck has essentially flauxbammed the Dealer.)

The player with the lowest-ranked card each hand must push one of their piles into the pot. Suits have no bearing in breaking ties -- all players sharing the same lowest rank must push in a pile. Once a player has pushed in their final stack, they exit the game. The winner of the match is that player with the last remaining pile in front of him, and he collects the entire pot.

Strategy notes

• Typically, all players will attempt to trade a card ranking Four or lower; most players will trade a Five; and some players will trade a Six. Very few, if any, intelligent players will trade a Seven unless there are only 2 or 3 people left in play.
• An attentive player will make exception to the above note when, for example, he is forced to trade away a Two, but receives a Three instead. Knowing that the player to their right is now stuck with a Two, there is little reason to trade the Three.

Internal links

Shit On Your Neighbor was written by the following contributor(s):

• Gregory J. Kohs
• Karl D. Nagel