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The rules of War.

War is the simplest card game: two players, 52 cards dealt evenly, 26 each, zero decisions. You turn over the top card and the higher one takes both. The game you pick up when you don’t want to think about anything.

House rules, checked against the engine that applies themupdated

Players
2
Length
5–15 min
Difficulty
Pure luck
Leaderboard
Yes
The complete rules 6 sections

How to play.

The highest card takes the hand. A tie starts the war.

  1. 01

    How to play

    • The deck is dealt evenly, 26 cards each. Each player turns over their top card.
    • The highest card takes both. Cards you win are set aside and shuffled back in when the stack in front of you runs out.
    • After each hand, the cards stay on the table for a few seconds, with the winner’s name under them. You can press “Continue” if you don’t want to wait.
  2. 02

    Card order

    CardPlace in the order
    2 – 10As printed: 2 is the lowest, 10 beats everything below it.
    JackAbove 10.
    QueenAbove the jack.
    KingAbove the queen.
    AceThe highest card. Beats the king, queen, jack and everything else.
    • Suit doesn’t matter at all: a heart doesn’t beat a spade. Only rank counts.
  3. 03

    The war and its size

    • On a tie, war is declared, and its SIZE comes from the tied card.
    • Two 8s mean a war of 8: each player puts down 7 cards face down and one face up, eight in all.
    • Two queens mean a war of 12: 11 face down and one face up. The face cards count as Jack 11, Queen 12, King 13.
    • The ACE is the exception. In a comparison it’s the highest card, but as a number it counts as one — so a war of aces is a one-card war: each player puts down a single card, face up, with nothing under it.
    • The higher of the turned cards takes everything that’s piled up. If those tie too, a new war is declared, sized by the new tie.
  4. 04

    When the deck runs short

    • If one player doesn’t have as many cards as the war calls for, the war shrinks to what the smaller stack can put down — and both players put down that many.
    • In a war of 6, an opponent down to three cards puts two face down and one face up. They do NOT lose for being short.
    • You lose only when you have no cards left: then the other player takes the whole stake.
  5. 05

    The end

    • Whoever collects all the cards wins. If it isn’t over after 300 rounds, whoever has more cards wins.
    • War has a leaderboard like every other game: matches between real players move your rating.
  6. 06

    Thinking time

    • The host picks the pace when opening the table: 10 or 30 seconds per move, or no timer. While no match is running, the host can change it in the table settings. The timer is shown on the table.
    • At a table with a clock, if you run out of time you are ELIMINATED from the match: your cards leave the game and the others carry on without you.
    • The server doesn’t play for you. A player who has left the table but kept playing cards would hold the others in a match with no opponent.
    • When only one player is left, the match ends and that player wins.

Rules differ from one place to another. The tables here play the version written above, so everyone plays by the same rules.

Do you play it differently?

The most common variants of War, and what happens with each one at the tables here.

  • A war always uses three face-down cardsnot played here

    The classic version, with a fixed number. Here the size comes from the tied card — a war of queens is much fatter than a war of threes.

  • On a tie, the cards are splitnot played here

    Some people play without war: tied cards are separated and each player takes their own. Here war is declared; otherwise the game would have no moment of tension at all.

  • Played with three or fournot played here

    Here it’s strictly for two. With more players, ties become too frequent and the match never ends.

  • The ace counts as 14 for war size toonot played here

    Here it’s the highest in a comparison, but it counts as one for war size. A war of aces is a single card.

  • The match stops after a set number of roundsplayed here

    Played here too: after 300 rounds, whoever has more cards wins. Without a limit, two balanced stacks could cycle forever.

Once you know the rules

How to play better.

  1. There’s nothing to decide, and that’s the whole point

    War has no decisions. It’s the game you open when you want to play with someone without thinking about anything — or when you’re teaching a little one what it means that a king beats a queen.

  2. The ace beats everything, but its war is one card

    In a comparison it’s the highest card in the deck. As a war size it counts as one: two tied aces mean a war of a single card, face up, with nothing under it. It’s the only exception in the game, and the one that surprises everybody.

  3. A war is measured by the tied card

    Two 8s mean eight cards from each player — seven face down and one face up. Two queens mean twelve. The bigger the card, the fatter the stake.

  4. A small stack doesn’t lose from the start

    If you don’t have as many cards as the war calls for, the war shrinks for both of you. You lose only when you have no cards left — so a match turned around from three cards to a win really does happen.

  5. Suit never matters

    A heart doesn’t beat a spade. Only rank counts. It’s the first rule broken by anyone who has played other card games before.

Before you play

Questions about War.

How many players can play War?
Exactly 2. The table doesn’t seat more.
How many cards do you start with in War?
No hand is dealt: the deck is split into face-down piles, one for each player, and the cards are turned over one at a time.
How long does a match of War take?
About 5–15 min. The host sets the pace: 10 or 30 seconds per move, or no timer at all.
Can I play War against the computer?
Yes. The host can seat bots in the empty seats, at two skill levels. But the moment the first bot sits down, the table drops off the leaderboard: a bot has no rating to put at stake.
Do War matches count toward the leaderboard?
Yes, as long as everyone at the table is human. Each game has its own leaderboard, with an Elo-style rating that starts at 1000.
Do I need an account to play War?
To sit at a table, yes. The rules above, the catalog and the leaderboards can be read without one, and you can watch an open table from the sidelines.
Does it cost anything to play War here?
No. The site is free: no subscriptions, no in-game payments and no playing for money. The account is free too.
War · the table is open

Now you know the rules.

Create a table and play — no account needed.

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