Play Nine Card Game: Rules for How to Play

Setup

Each player randomly draws a card. The player that draws the lowest card becomes the dealer. If there is a tie, the tied players draw another card until someone draws a lower card. The role of the dealer changes throughout the game.

For each round/hole the dealer shuffles all of the cards. They will deal out eight cards to each player. Players will place their cards in a 4×2 grid. No one can look at their cards while they are arranging them into the grid.

The rest of the cards are placed facedown in the middle of the table to create the draw pile. Turn over the top card from the draw pile to create a discard pile.

Each player chooses two cards from their grid to flip over. The round/hole then begins.

Setup for Play Nine — This player has setup their eight cards and chose two of the cards to flip over.

How to Play Play Nine

The player to the left of the dealer starts each round/hole. The goal of Play Nine is to try and have as low of score as possible on the cards placed in front of you.

At the beginning of each of your turns you will draw a card. You can either take the top card from the draw or discard pile. After you draw a card, you will choose what you want to do with it. If you choose the top card from the draw pile, you can choose one of two options.

Choose a card to draw — On this player’s turn they can choose to either take the top card from the draw or discard pile. They will likely want to take the top card from the draw pile.

First you can choose to keep the card and use it to replace one of the cards in front of you. Generally if the number is low, you probably want to keep it. You can either choose to use the card you drew to replace one of your face up or facedown cards. When you have chosen which card you want to replace, you will remove the card from your grid and place it on top of the discard pile. You will then put the card you drew in the now empty space in your grid.

Replace a face up card with a zero — This player drew a zero card. They decide to replace the face up seven card in their grid with the zero. The seven card is discarded and the zero takes its place in the grid.

Otherwise if you draw a card from the draw pile that you don’t want to keep, you can discard it to the discard pile. If you choose this option, you have to choose one of your facedown cards to flip over so you can see the number.

Turning over a card after discarding the card that was drawn — This player drew a high card that they didn’t want to put in their grid. They decided to discard the card instead of placing it in their grid. They then chose to flip over the card that turned out to be a five.

If you chose the top card from the discard pile, you must place the card in front of you. You can either replace a face up or facedown card. Unlike when you take a card from the draw pile, you cannot choose to discard the card.

Replacing a face down card — After taking the three card from the discard pile, this player decided to have it replace one of their face down cards. They will turn over the face down card and add it to the discard pile. They will then put the three card in the now open space.

After you have drawn a card and chosen what you want to do with it, your turn ends. On each of your turns you need to either replace a card in your grid, or flip over one of the facedown cards. Play then passes to the next player in clockwise (left) direction.

Lining Up the Final Putt

When you only have one facedown card left in front of you, you have an additional option that you can take on your turn.

If you draw a card that you don’t want to place in your grid, you can choose to discard it. Normally you would then have to flip over a facedown card. If you only have one facedown card left though, you can choose not to reveal your final card. You may choose to do this since once you reveal the last facedown card, you trigger the end of the round. You can use this option in order to skip multiple turns in a row as you try to find lower value cards to place in your grid.

Putting Out

When a player turns over their last facedown card (all of their cards are now face up), they will trigger the end of the round.

The rest of the players get one last turn. Each player gets to draw one card and chooses whether they want to replace one of the cards in their grid.

After everyone has taken their last turn, the round/hole ends. Any cards that are still facedown, are flipped over. All of the players will then tally their scores for the round. See the Scoring section below for more details.

Starting the Next Hole

The player to the left of the last dealer, becomes the dealer for the next hole. They will gather up all of the cards and shuffle them. Setup for the next hole is the same as the first hole.

Scoring

To determine your score for a hole, you will count up the value of all of the cards in front of you. Hole-in-One cards are worth -5 points, so they will reduce your score by five.

Before you tally your score though, you should look to see if you successfully shaved off any strokes from your score.

Matching Two Cards: If both cards in the same column are the same number, they cancel out each other. Instead of scoring the points on the cards, the two cards are worth zero points.

Scoring a two card match — This player placed two eight cards in the second column. The two cards cancel each other out so the player scores zero points from those two cards. This player scores a total of eleven points.

Matching Four Cards: Should you create two columns that all have the same number, all of the cards cancel each other out. You also get to subtract ten points from your score.

Scoring a four card match — This player has collected four eight cards in two columns. The cards cancel each other out and score -10 points. This player scores a total of -12 points this round.

Matching Six Cards: If you have three columns where all six cards are the same, all six cards cancel each other out. You also get to subtract fifteen points from your score.

Score six card match — This player has six eight cards in three different columns. The eight cards will score -15 points. This player will score a total of -20 points.

Matching Eight Cards: Should all of your cards be the same number, they all cancel each other out. You will score -20 points this hole.

Scoring an eight card match — This player has acquired all eight cards. They score -20 points for the cards.

Matching Two Hole-In-One Cards: Should you have two Hole-In-One cards in the same column, they do not cancel each other out. Each card is still worth -5 points each for a total of -10 points.

Scoring two Hole-in-One cards — This player has two Hole-in-One cards in the far left column. Unlike other cards, the Hole-in-One cards don’t cancel each other out so you will still score -10 points for the two cards. This player scores a total of 17 points.

Four Hole-in-One Bonus: If a player gets all four Hole-In-One cards in two columns, each card still scores -5 points. You also receive a bonus of -10 points. In total you will score -30 points for the four Hole-in-One cards.

Scoring four Hole-in-One cards — This player acquired four Hole-in-One cards in two columns. They will score -30 points for the four cards. The player scores a total of -21 points this round.

Winning Play Nine

The game ends after the players have played nine holes. The players total their scores for all nine holes. The player that scores the least points wins the game. If there is a tie, the tied players play a final sudden death playoff hole.

Components

108 Cards
- 8 cards of each number
- 4 Hole-In-One cards
Score Pad
Pencil
Instructions

Year: 2004 | Publisher: Double A Productions | Designer: Ceil Anderson, Kathy Assell

Genres: Card, Set Collection

Ages: 8+ | Number of Players: 2-6 | Length of Game: 45 minutes

Difficulty: Light | Strategy: Light | Luck: Moderate-High

For more board and card game rules/how to plays, check out our complete alphabetical list of card and board game rules posts.

Written By:

Eric Mortensen

Eric Mortensen is an owner and head writer on Geeky Hobbies since 2014. He is an avid board game player and collector with over 3,000 board and card games in his collection. Since 2014 he has written more than 1,100 board game how to play guides.