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How to Set Up the Skip-Bo Game

Skip-Bo is a card game that incorporates an aspect of Solitaire. Players set up the game by making piles of their cards, then building other piles as they play. The game features the usual draw and discard piles that many card games employ, along with a stock pile for an unusually large number of dealt cards and multiple discard piles. If you'd rather not play Solitaire alone, Skip-Bo is easy to set up for a group of two to four players.

Things You'll Need

Pen
Paper

Instructions

- 1
  Deal 30 cards to each player, then place the remaining cards face-down in the middle of the game board to make a draw pile.
- 2
  Make a stock pile for each player. Place the cards you were dealt in a pile, face-down, to your right. Turn the top card face-up.
- 3
  Take five cards from the draw pile if you are the player on the dealer's left. If the face-up card on top of your stock pile or any of the cards you drew are a Skip-Bo or a one, start a building pile. Place the Skip-Bo or one card in the middle of the board beside the draw pile. Only these two cards can be used to start building piles. The Skip-Bo card can be used because it's a wild card, and it can also be used as any number you need when you're making a building pile.
- 4
  Continue to play cards from your stock pile if you placed the first card in a building pile. You must place cards in the building pile in numerical order only, from one through 12. Form up to four building piles on the board. When one building pile is complete, with cards from one through 12, remove it and start another in its place.
- 5
  Continue to play cards from your hand if you placed the first card you drew in a building pile.
- 6
  Draw five more cards if you play all five of the cards you drew, and continue playing.
- 7
  End your turn when you can no longer make a play by adding to a building pile, or when you choose not to continue, by placing a card in a discard pile. You may form up to four discard piles, placed to the left of your stock pile. You may place any number of cards in any of the discard piles, but you may play the top card only from any of your discard piles.
- 8
  Draw cards from the draw pile on your next turn. Take enough cards to bring the total in your hand back to five.
- 9
  Play the top card from your stock pile, any of your discard piles or your hand by adding to the building piles. Play cards from your stock pile first when possible, since the object of the game is to use up all of the cards in that pile and win.
- 10
  Shuffle the cards from completed building piles when the draw pile runs out, and use them as a new draw pile.

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