Here is a weird question to ask yourself. Can you beat the devil? It’s an interesting tarot card to have in a reading, but this isn’t tarot we are talking about. We are talking about a solo card game played with a regular 52 playing card deck. The game is beat the devil.
Quick Back Story
There are no places on the internet that talk about where this card game from. I would say that the origins are completley unknown. If I was to guess it wouldn’t have been devised in current times, and would likley be an old solo card game.
I was fortune to learn this game when I was working in a call center. If you can learn how to talk and use your hands at the same time, you can easily keep entertained. The game is a quick play, and it is easy to learn.
Original Rules
When played with the original rules, the game is unforgiving. You will find that you can beat the devil, but with very low odds of winning.
This requires at 52 card deck of playing cards. Jokers are not used, and you can use decks with more court cards if you want. It will only be harder. The Path and Playing Card deck is one such deck you can use for this game.
Shuffle the cards well and remove the first card from the top of the deck. Place the card onto the playing space to make the first pile. Take the second card and place it next to the first pile. If these two cards match then draw one card on top of each the matching piles. If those two new cards match then again, draw one card on each of the piles. If these two new cards do not match draw another card and make a third pile.
Keep drawing cards to either make new piles or to cover the matches that are created as you draw out cards. You can use up to eight piles for a game.
The player wins when there are no more cards in the deck. The game is over if you can’t use all the cards.
Match the cards according to their value. 2’s with 2’s, face card to face card, and so on. Suits do not matter when matching the cards during play.
You cannot open up another pile if there are available matches to cover. When you have 8 piles established you have to rely on creating matches to use up all the cards.
There can be cases when there are multiple matches. The player then has a choice which matches to cover first.
A rare occurrence in beat the devil is seeing a match of three of four. Treat with the same rules as a match. Draw a card onto the three or four of a kind. This will not happen often.
Remember that as you draw cards onto the matches you cannot make other matches until you have compelted the covering sequence. If after you have covered your matches new cards you have another match you can then draw new cards onto it.
With those rules, you should be able to beat the devil … eventually. The chances of winning a game with these rules is about 1 in 10.
Watch a quick video on how to play the game.
A Lack of Content for Beat the Devil
When researching this article I wanted to see if anyone had written about the game. I found that there was only one piece of writing that explained the rules as I knew them.
Searching “beat the devil card game” reveals a paper by a University of New Brunswick student named Sean Falconer in 2005. This paper described how one could program the game on a computer to generate an output.
Searching on Youtube reveals very little about this game. Some videos have tags beat the devil, but they are not videos explaining the game as I know it. As far as I know there is no known living author of this game or any clear origins. This games appears to live through word of mouth.
Changing the Game
After playing with the original rules I decided that I could add more rules to the game. These changes seemed to affect the difficulty of the game. Instead of using only eight piles you can add extra piles to give yourself an edge. I sometimes use nine piles when I play. It becomes much easier to beat the devil with more piles.
French Tarot
Tarot decks have other uses beyond casting fortunes. Tarot is also a multi-player card game known as French Tarot or Jeu De Tarot (the game of tarot). This is classified as a trick-taking game. This is type of multiplayer game where you collect cards for points.
The game of tarot is very similar to the game of war a card game played by two people. Both players draw a card and the player with the highest value takes both cards. This is same in trick taking game mechanic as in the game of tarot.
A French tarot deck consists of 78 cards: 21 trumps ranging from 1 to 21, 1 unnumbered trump called “the fool” or “excuse” (L’excuse or Fou) , and 4 suits of 14 cards.
The 4 suites have pip cards ranging from 1 to 10 and 4 face cards: the Valet (Jack), Cavalier (Knight), Dame (Queen), Roi (King). In a tarot deck for divinity these face cards are the Page, Knight, Queen and King. Other decks may have different names for the face cards (court cards). As an example The Wild Unknown tarot deck, uses son, daughter, mother, and father for their court cards.
French Tarot cards resemble regular playing cards, accept they are much bigger. The pip and face cards look like regular playing cards and the trump cards have imagery that depicts everyday life.
Using French Tarot to Beat the Devil
Having a french tarot deck is great. Not only will you be able to play the classic trick-taking game, but you can play beat the devil with the deck. We only need to change the rules a little bit to accommodate the trumps and the fool.
I prefer to use a French Tarot deck if I am using is to play beat the devil. The reason is that there is little distracting imagery on the cards and I see the matches much more quickly.
New Rules For Using a Tarot Deck
For this you can use a French Tarot deck or a regular tarot deck. The rules for beat the devil with Tarot remain almost the same. Each trump card 1 through 21 are matches, and the fool is a wild card. Once in play, the fool can form a pair with any card. This will allow a considerable amount of matches to come from the trumps.
Decide on how many piles are usable before play, or you may decide that you want to extend the piles during play. Using more than 9 or more piles will give you a chance at beating the devil with the 78 cards.
Rules for Beating the Devil with Tarot
1. Decide if you want to extend the piles in play or decide on a certain number of piles to use. Use at least 9 piles to start any game. The more piles you can have at plat, the easier the game is.
2. Match the cards. All 21 trump cards make a match. Only the value of the pip and face cards determines a match and the suite is irrelevant during play. The fool card is a wild card that can form a match with any card including trumps. Note: you do not have to use the fool as a wild card.
NOTE: When matching cards you will find that many pairs can be present at any given time. In cases where there are many trumps in play, or multiple pairs, you may choose to not cover them until an opportune moment. You may choose to cover other matches instead. Before starting a new pile you must cover all possible matches available including any matching trumps.
3. Shuffle the cards in any way you choose making sure they are shuffled very well. Draw from the top of the deck to make the first two piles. If they match draw one card onto each pile. If the cards do not match draw another card to form the third pile. Continue to draw cards forming new piles until you find a match or run out of piles. You win the game if you use the entire deck. You lose if you are unable to play all the cards within the set amount of piles.
NOTE: if you have chosen to extend the piles in play then you will be always win the game. To challenge yourself in this way would be to use the least amount of piles for a game.
4. Scoring is optional but encouraged. If you can beat the game using a set amount of piles you can keep you can track that. Additionally, you can take note of how many matches of at least three you get in a game. Count 1 point for a match of three cards, and 1 point extra for every match beyond 3. Four cards matching is 2 points, a match of five cards is 3 points, and so on.
NOTE: You will not be able to match beyond 4 with pips cards unless you have a fool in play. You will only be able to match more than 5 with the trumps.
IMPORTANT NOTE: You will notice that once you draw one card onto a match there could be other matches available from that one card. You must finish the sequence and draw the cards onto each matching set before you can observe other matches.
FINAL NOTE ON SCORING: Sometimes there can be many matches beyond 3 right at the moment you run out of cards. Place the remaining cards in a opportune way covering whatever matches you choose. You may not be able to cover all matches, so place them with strategy. Now count matches of 3 and beyond with the above scoring rules. Be careful not to place the cards in a way that will take away points, but sometimes you won’t have a choice.
Check out a play session where I beat the devil using 12 piles. Couldn’t do it with 11.
Final Words from the Devil
Try the original rules of beat the devil with the 52 card deck to see how difficult it is. Then try and see how often you win when you open new piles. If you have a French tarot deck try the new rules and see how you like it.
In case you didn’t think beating the devil was possible using a 52 card deck and 8 piles? Watch this video!
If you have questions about the game or have suggestions for improvement email me at pathandtarot@gmail.com. If you know about the history of beat the devil and you want to share, I would love to hear from you. Until then… enjoy the game.
Beat The Devil With The Wild Unknown
Introducing Divinity With Beat The Devil
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Resources
How Tarot Cards Work
Playing Card Meanings for Cartomancy
Buy The Path and Playing Card Deck
The Path and Playing Card Deck Guide