Sampen
Sampen (pronounced with the stress on the first syllable) is a simple card game from China. It can be played by as few as two or as many as eight players. Sampen is nearly entirely luck-based, although players do have a few choices available to them. Its straightforward game play and lack of deep strategy make it a good option for young children.
Object of Sampen
The object of Sampen is to be the first player to get rid of all of your cards.
Setup
To play Sampen, you’ll need to build a special 60-card deck. To do this, start with two standard 52-card decks of the same back design and color—Denexa 100% Plastic Playing Cards is our preferred option, of course. From each deck, remove the aces through 10s of clubs. From the other three suits, remove the 10s and face cards. You’ll be left with two 30-card decks consisting of A–9♠, A–9♦, A–9♥, and J-Q-K♣. Shuffle these two 30-card decks together to form the full 60-card deck.
Note that as long as each card has one duplicate elsewhere in the deck, the exact composition of the deck is somewhat immaterial to the game play. If you wish, you can simply play with a full 104-card double deck (which allows you to accommodate even more players).
The number of cards you’ll need to deal depends on the number of players:
- Two or three players: deal fifteen cards
- Four players: deal thirteen cards
- Five players: deal eleven cards
- Six players: deal nine cards
- Seven or eight players: deal seven cards
Place the rest of the deck face-down in the center of the table, forming the stock. Turn over the top card of the stock. This card, the upcard, is the first card of the discard pile.
Game play
Because the game is played with a double deck, each card in the deck has a duplicate, either in one of the players’ hands or the stock. If a player holds the duplicate (matching in both rank and suit) to the upcard, they may discard it. They then play another card from their hand to the discard pile to serve as the new upcard. A player then discards this card’s duplicate, and so on.
A player may occasionally end up being dealt both copies of a given card. To rid themselves of such a pair, a player must first be able to match another upcard. Then they can play one card of the pair, then the other as its match, then finally another card to serve as the next upcard.
If the duplicate to an upcard isn’t played, the dealer should confirm that none of the players actually hold it. If that is the case, the dealer turns over the top card of the stock, which becomes the new upcard.
Game play continues until one player successfully discards all of their cards. That player is the winner.
