4-card golf for backpackers
players
minutes
52 cards
You have 4 face-down cards, and may not look at them during the game. You keep switching cards for ones you know until one of you thinks they have the best, i.e. the lowest, cards and closes the round. If you stay alert and are fast enough, you might get rid of cards by throwing them onto same ones on the discard.
When playing with more than 5 players, add the 13 cards 0-10, J, Q from one additional suit per additional player. The actual suits do not matter in this game.
Any player deals four cards face-down to each player and places the remaining cards as a face-down draw stack in the middle of the table.
Each player arranges their four cards face-down in a two by two grid in front of them on the table. Then, each player looks at the two cards in their bottom row and replaces them face-down. Each player should now only know two of their cards, and all cards should be face-down. They will stay face-down until the end of the round.
Starting with the player with the highest score and going clockwise around the table, keep taking turns until a player knocks and ends the round. In the first round, the dealer takes the first turn.
On your turn, first draw a card, possibly switch it with one of the face-down cards in front of you, and then discard a card and possibly use its special power. Instead of drawing and discarding you may also “knock” to finish the round, giving each other player only a single last turn.
Either draw a card from the draw stack and look at it, or draw the topmost card from the face-up discard. If you draw a card from the stack and don't want to keep it, you may immediately discard it to the discard. If you draw a card from the discard, you may not discard it again immediately.
You may replace one of your face-down cards with the card you have drawn. Place the new card face-down in the position of the card you replace, and discard the former card from that position face-up to the discard. Flip the card you discard face-up in a way that lets all other players see it before you do.
If you discard any face card – that is a Jack or a Queen (or a King, if you use them) – you may use its special power: either peek at a card or switch two cards. You may either peek under any card in front of any player, including yourself. Alternatively, you may switch two of the cards in front of players, including yourself, without looking at them, keeping them face-down.
Instead of taking a regular turn, you may knock, i.e. declare that you want to finish the round. In that case, each other player will get another regular turn, and when the turn comes back to you, the round ends and all players score.
If the last card is drawn from the stack, or any player gets rid of their last card (see below, “out of turn discards”), the round ends immediately, no player gets to take any more turns, and all players score.
Each player flips their remaining cards face-up and sums their values. Each card is worth their face value in points, Jacks and Queens are worth 10 points. (If you use Aces, they are worth 1 point. If you use Kings, they are worth zero points.) If you have knocked and your total value exceeds 5 points, double your points.
Keep a running total of the points over multiple rounds. If, after a round, a player has reached 25 points or more, the game ends and the player with the fewest points wins.
Anytime any player (including yourself) discards a card, you may immediately discard a card of the same value from your cards, out of turn.
Pick up the card you think has the correct value from your face-down cards and slam it face-up on the card just discarded. If it indeed has the same face value, leave it there, you just got rid of a card. Note that you may not use the special power of face cards discarded in this way. If it has the wrong value, replace it face-down in front of you, take another card from the draw stack as a penalty and place it face-down in front of you as well. You now have an additional card. In any case, the next player in regular turn order now takes their turn.
You may even discard face-down cards from other players in this way; you may have peeked at them or switched them using a picture card, or have witnessed that player drawing a face-up discard and replacing that card. Either way, if you discarded correctly, move one of your face-down cards in front of that other player to replace the card you discarded from their layout. If you are incorrect, as a penalty replace that card face-down in front of you instead of that other player.
Only the fastest player to discard out of turn succeeds. If a second (or third etc) player tries to discard out of turn as well, but is too slow, placing their card on top of a faster out of turn discard, they have to replace it face-down in front of them. There is no further penalty for this, apart from all other players now knowing your card. You still have to take a penalty card if you tried discarding an incorrect card though. If the first out of turn discard was incorrect, the second one succeeds instead, if correct, etc.
If you get rid of your last card in this way, the round ends immediately and is scored. Obviously, as you have no cards left, you will score zero points. Bam.
Early in a round, it is often a good play to switch cards you do not know for high cards you do know, allowing you to discard these out of turn. For the same reason, it makes sense to pay attention if players take cards from the discard and to try and keep track of these.
Cactus is a variant to the popular traditional card game Golf from Canada and made popular worldwide by backpackers. For two players we recommend a different Golf variant instead, called Nines. If you are interested in further Golf variants, check out the Golf page on pagat.com.
If you especially enjoy the speed aspect of the Out Of Turn Discard rule, you might be interested in checking out the fast-paced pattern-matching game Egyptian Ratscrew, or the realtime multiplayer solitaire game Nerts.
Instead of the Zero and One cards, many players use Kings and Aces, assigning them a face value of zero and one. Note that a discarded King, in this case, will also trigger special powers, as described above for Queens and Jacks.