How to Play

Spite and Malice is a two-player competitive patience game. Each player races to empty a 26-card stockpile onto shared centre piles built Ace through Queen. Kings and Jokers are wild; personal discard piles are the strategic layer. The commercial Skip-Bo is its direct descendant.

Spite and Malice (also Cat and Mouse) is a two-player competitive patience game, best known today as the source of Mattel's commercial Skip-Bo (1967). Each player has a personal face-down stockpile (sometimes called the goal pile) of 26 cards with only the top card face-up. In the middle of the table sit up to four shared centre building piles, built upward in ascending rank from Ace through Queen. Each player also has up to four personal discard piles (known as 'payoff piles' in Skip-Bo), a 5-card hand, and a shared face-down draw pile. On your turn you may play cards from your hand, the top of your stockpile, or the top of any of your discard piles onto the centre. Kings are wild and substitute for any rank. The centre piles only go from Ace to Queen; when a pile reaches the Queen, it is complete and the whole pile is shuffled back into the draw pile. You must end your turn by discarding one card from your hand to one of your personal discard piles. The first player to empty their 26-card stockpile wins.

Players

2 players, head-to-head. Variants exist for 3 or more players (each with their own stockpile), and for partnerships of 2-vs-2. A single game takes 20 to 45 minutes. Turn order alternates strictly; there is no clockwise/anticlockwise distinction because there are only two players.

Card Deck

• Two standard 52-card packs shuffled together (104 cards), plus 4 Jokers = 108 cards total. Some groups omit the Jokers and use Kings alone as wilds; these rules use both.
• Rank order for centre building: Ace (low) → 2 → 3 → 4 → 5 → 6 → 7 → 8 → 9 → 10 → Jack → Queen. A pile is complete at Queen.A♠Q♠J♠
• Kings are wild and may substitute for any rank on the centre piles.
• Jokers are wild and may also substitute for any rank on the centre piles.
• Suits do not matter at any point; only rank and sequence are relevant.
• Aces can never be placed on a discard pile (Aces can only be played to the centre).

Objective

Be the first player to empty your personal 26-card stockpile by playing its top card onto a centre building pile. Cards still in your hand or on your discard piles at the moment of victory do not matter.

Setup and Deal

1. Shuffle the 108 cards (two 52-card packs plus 4 Jokers) into one combined pack.
2. Deal each player 26 cards face-down as their stockpile (goal pile). Flip the top card face-up.
3. Deal each player 5 cards face-down from the remaining pack; this is their starting hand.
4. Place the rest of the pack face-down in the centre as the shared draw pile.
5. Leave room in the centre for up to four centre building piles (all start empty).
6. Each player has space for up to four personal discard piles in front of them (all start empty).
7. Cut for first turn (high card goes first), or let the loser of the previous game start.

Turn Flow

1. Refill: at the start of your turn, if your hand has fewer than 5 cards, draw from the top of the shared draw pile until you have 5. (If the draw pile is empty, skip this step; see stock-exhaustion below.)
2. Play: you may now play as many cards as you wish onto the centre building piles. Each card played must be exactly one rank higher than the top card of the centre pile it is going on, or an Ace starting a new pile, or a wild King or Joker acting as any needed rank.
3. Sources you may play from: (a) your hand; (b) the top card of your stockpile; (c) the top card of any one of your four discard piles.
4. Goal-oriented play: when the top card of your stockpile is playable on a centre pile, play it. As soon as it leaves, flip the next stockpile card face-up. Clearing your stockpile ends the game.
5. New centre piles: an Ace (or a wild substituting for an Ace) started on an empty centre space begins a new pile. You may not start more than four centre piles at once.
6. Pile completion: when a centre pile reaches Queen (rank 12), the entire 12-card pile is taken off the board and shuffled back into the draw pile. That centre-pile slot is now empty and ready for a new Ace.
7. Discard: you MUST end your turn by placing one card from your hand face-up on one of your four discard piles. You may start a new pile if you have fewer than four, or add on top of an existing one. You may NOT discard an Ace.
8. Discard-pile rule: there is no required sequence on your discard piles; you can stack any ranks in any order. Only the top card is ever visible and playable. Discard-pile strategy is the core tactical layer: you want a top card that is always useful and not a card that will bury your next useful play.

Wild Cards: Kings and Jokers

• Kings are wild; they may be played on any centre pile as any rank (including as an Ace to start a new pile).
• Jokers are wild in the same way as Kings.
• Wilds on a centre pile do NOT count toward a specific rank for matching; they simply fill whatever rank is needed and the next card must be one rank higher than the wild's assumed position.
• You may play a wild from your hand, stockpile, or the top of a discard pile, like any other card.
• When a centre pile is completed (reaches Queen) the wilds in it shuffle back into the draw pile along with the rest of the pile.
• Aces are NOT wild; an Ace is always an Ace.

Stock Exhaustion

If the shared draw pile runs out mid-game before either player has emptied their stockpile, gather all completed-centre-pile cards (already shuffled back) and continue dealing from them. If no refill is available and a player's hand drops below 5, they simply play with a shorter hand; no penalty applies. The game continues normally until one stockpile is empty.

Winning

The first player to play the final card of their 26-card stockpile wins immediately, regardless of hand size or discard pile contents. If in a rare edge case both stockpiles empty on the same play (effectively impossible under standard rules but possible in partnership variants), the player whose turn it was wins.

Common Variations

• Skip-Bo: Mattel's commercial version uses its own 144-card branded pack (12 of each rank 1 to 12 plus 18 'Skip-Bo' wilds), a smaller 30-card stockpile, no Aces (cards ranked 1 to 12 plus wilds), and builds centre piles 1 to 12. The core mechanic is identical to Spite and Malice.
• Cat and Mouse: an older name for Spite and Malice; mechanics are the same.
• Three- or four-player Spite: each player has their own stockpile, and turns rotate clockwise. Partnership play (2-vs-2) uses a shared stockpile per team but each partner still has their own hand and discards.
• Short stockpile: 13- or 15-card stockpiles produce much faster games and are popular for children.
• Kings-only wild: drop the Jokers; only Kings remain wild. Reduces the wild count from 12 to 8.
• No-block house rule: the discard-as-blocking move (putting a useless card on top of your own discard pile to deny opponent plays) is forbidden; this softens the 'spite' and is popular in family games.
• Open-stock: play with the top three (rather than one) stockpile cards face-up. Strategic planning becomes richer; beginner difficulty rises.

Tips and Strategy

• Your stockpile is the only thing that wins. Every turn should ask: 'Can I play my stockpile top?' If the answer is no, work toward making the answer yes.
• Discard piles are your second hand. Treat them as four labelled stacks: one for low cards (2 to 5), one for mid cards (6 to 8), one for high cards (9 to Jack), one for wilds or awkward cards. Keeping organised prevents burying the exact rank you will need in two turns.
• Do not waste wilds. A wild played at rank 2 saves you a 2; a wild played at rank Jack saves you a Jack. Jacks are scarcer (only 8 per combined pack), so wilds are more valuable late in a pile.
• Watch the opponent's stockpile top. If their top card is, say, a 7, then keeping centre piles frozen below 7 denies them the play; playing up to a 6 sets them up.
• Build centre piles just below your stockpile's top rank so you can cash in on your next turn.
• Discard cards that clog your hand first. A hand full of Queens is dead weight (you can't play Queens to the centre unless a pile is at Jack). Discard them early so you can draw fresh.
• Block smartly. If the opponent has a 5 on top of their stockpile and a centre pile is at 4, playing to make that pile 5 or above denies the immediate goal play; this is the 'spite' in the name.
• Conserve Aces in your hand for centre-pile starts; do not leave them stuck under other cards on your discards (you cannot discard Aces anyway).

Glossary

• Stockpile (goal pile, payoff pile): the 26-card face-down stack each player races to empty; only the top card is face-up.
• Centre pile (building pile): one of up to four shared piles in the middle of the table, built Ace through Queen.A♠Q♠
• Discard pile: one of up to four personal face-up piles each player keeps; used to park hand cards at end of turn.
• Hand: the 5 cards each player holds privately.
• Draw pile: the shared face-down pack from which players refill their hands.
• Wild: a King or Joker; may substitute for any rank on a centre pile but cannot be an Ace on a discard pile (and Aces cannot be discarded at all).A♠K♠
• Spite / blocking: making a play or discard that hurts the opponent more than it helps you.
• Closing a pile: playing the Queen that completes a centre pile; the pile then recycles into the draw pile.