Club Fight
Club Fight Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Overview
Club Fight is played with a traditional deck of cards, including one or two Jokers. Using only the 13 cards of the club deck, you must clear all the remaining cards of the deck from a 3x3 grid, using six types of actions available to you. However, groups of 3 or more cards in the same suit will block an action type, depending on the suit.
Set Up
Decide on a difficulty level: 1 Joker for easy, 2 Jokers for hard. Separate the clubs from the rest of the deck, shuffle them, and create a draw pile. Shuffle the remaining cards and create a second draw pile. From this pile, place 9 cards face up in a 3x3 grid. From the clubs draw pile, draw 4 cards into your hand. Leave a space for discarded cards. (You may wish to create a separate discard pile for the clubs.)
Setup layout: the grid deck, the 3x3 grid, the grid discard, the clubs deck, the clubs discard, and your hand.
Objective
Each game consists of at most 13 turns. Each turn, discard a club from your hand to clear cards from the grid using one of the available actions listed below. Then, refresh the grid (placing cards from left to right starting with the top row and working down) and draw clubs into your hand so that you again have four cards (if cards remain). Discarded cards do not reenter the game, but you may wish to look through them. If you clear the last remaining cards from the grid and there are no more cards in the grid deck, you win.
Values
A=1, J=11, Q=12, K=13. Jokers do not have a suit or a value.
Actions
Each turn, take one of the following 6 actions and then refresh the grid and your hand. Depending on the cards in the grid, some of the actions may be blocked, and therefore cannot be taken.
Always Available Actions
- Match – discard one club to clear all cards in the grid with the same value.
- Sum – discard one club to clear any number of cards whose sum is exactly the value of the discarded card.
- Any – discard one club to clear any one card in the grid. This is one of the two actions that can clear a Joker.
Blockable Actions
When there are 3 or more of a suit in the grid, an action will be blocked. Which actions are blocked depends on the suit. It is possible that all 3 blockable actions will be blocked.
- Line – discard one club to remove all cards in one row or one column that contains a card of the same value. (BLOCKED WHENEVER 3 OR MORE DIAMONDS APPEAR IN GRID) This is one of the two actions that can clear a Joker.
- Up/Down – discard the 2-7 of clubs to remove all cards in the grid lower in value of the discarded card. Or, discard the 7-Q of clubs to remove all cards in the grid higher in value of the discarded card. (BLOCKED WHENEVER 3 OR MORE SPADES APPEAR IN GRID)
- Run – discard one club to remove any number of cards in the grid which, along with the discarded card, are sequential in order. The cleared cards do not need to be of the same suit. K does not wrap around to A. (BLOCKED WHENEVER 3 OR MORE HEARTS APPEAR IN GRID)
Examples of Each Action Type
- Match: Discard 6 of clubs to clear all sixes in grid. (Taking the Up/Down action is blocked due to the three spades in the grid, and taking the Run action is blocked due to the three hearts.)
- Sum: Discard K of clubs to clear 6, 2, 4 and A (6+2+4+1=13).
- Any: Discard 2 of clubs to clear the Q of diamonds.
- Line: Discard 6 of clubs to clear one row or column containing a 6.
- Up/Down: Discard 4 of clubs to clear all cards with a value lower than 4. (Taking the Run action is blocked due to the three hearts in the grid.)
- Run: Discard 10 of clubs to clear 6, 7, 8, 9 and J, making a run from 6 to J. (Taking the Line action is blocked due to the three diamonds in the grid, and taking the Up/Down action is blocked due to the three spades.)
Reference Cards
The poker-sized reference cards in the rules can be printed out and used as a reference.
To remember which suits block which actions, try these mnemonics:
- Line – Blocked by Diamonds. The Line action can go up-down or left-right. A diamond points up, down, left and right.
- Up/Down – Blocked by Spades. Spades looks like arrows, pointing up or down.
- Run – Blocked by Hearts. Your heart works hard when you are running.