Opposing Force

This games is for 2 players and uses a 52-card deck. Each player receives six cards to make up his beginning hand.

Place 9 markers (paper clips, glass beads, pennies, whatever) in a horizontal row between the players. These are the objectives of the contest. I'll refer to these as "positions".

Players alternate turns. During his turn, a player selects one of his cards and places it face up on his side of any one of the nine positions. He then ends his turn by drawing a card from the deck. When the deck is depleted, players continue taking their turns without drawing any cards. Most likely, the game will end before this occurs.

No more than three cards can be placed on each side of a position. The object is to win the positions by having the higher three-card hand there. Using Poker terminology, the ranking of the hands is as follows:

1. Straight Flush (all of same suit, all in sequence)
2. Three of a Kind (all of same rank)
3. Flush (all of same suit)
4. Straight (all in sequence)
5. Anything Else

If two hands have the same rank, compare the values of the highest cards. The hand with the higher card wins. If this card is the same, compare the next highest, etc. If both sets are of identical rank, the player who completed his hand first wins.

Claiming Positions
Before playing a card, a player can claim a position if he has the higher hand there, or if he can show, using only the cards on the table, that it is impossible for his opponent to beat his hand. Once a position is claimed, no further cards can be played there. The object of the game is to be the first player to claim three positions in a row or five of the nine positions.

The illustration below shows a sample game in progress. The bottom player claimed position #1, with a flush versus (at best) a straight. The top player claimed position #5 with a straight flush by playing the 6 of hearts to position #3 and proving that the best the bottom player could complete would be a flush.