How to play
President
Also known as Asshole, Scum, Capitalism, Landlord.
- Players
- 3–8
- Play time
- 15 min
- Difficulty
- Medium
Play in 90s
Deal all cards out. Player left of dealer leads any single, pair, triple, or quad. Next player must beat it with the same quantity but higher rank — or pass. Highest card played wins the trick and leads next. Empty your hand first = President next round; last out = Scum. Next round, Scum gives their 2 best cards to President; President gives back 2 unwanted ones.
President is the closest a card game gets to a social experiment. You finish first, you’re President. You finish last, you’re Scum, and next round you have to give your two best cards away. The hierarchy compounds — the rich get richer, the poor get poorer — until somebody flips the table or someone at the bottom gets a freak hand and the whole order collapses. It’s mean, it’s funny, it’s the game everyone at the table remembers losing more clearly than they remember winning.
What you need
A standard 52-card deck. Three to eight people. A table you don’t mind shouting across. Optional but recommended: drinks within reach, since President is a game that rewards a long evening.
Setup
Deal the entire deck out, going clockwise. It’s fine if some players end up with one more card than others — the game absorbs it. The first round, anyone can lead. From the second round onward, the player who finished last (the Scum) gives their two highest cards to the player who finished first (the President). The President gives any two cards back, usually their two worst. If you’re playing with five or more, the second-to-last (Vice Scum) gives one card to second-place (Vice President), and gets one back.
How to play
Card ranking
Cards rank low-to-high: 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, J, Q, K, A, 2. Twos are the highest single card in the game. Suits don’t matter.
Leading a hand
The leader plays any single card, pair, three-of-a-kind, or four-of-a-kind face up. Whatever they lead, every following play has to match the count. If they lead a single 7, the next player has to play a single card higher than 7. If they lead a pair of jacks, the next player has to play a higher pair.
Following
Going clockwise, each player either plays a higher set of the same count or passes. Passing is fine; it doesn’t lock you out of the next hand. Play continues around the table until everyone passes consecutively, at which point the last player to play takes the pile (face down, out of the game) and leads the next hand.
Twos clear the pile
Playing a 2 (or a pair, triple, or quad of 2s, depending on the count) immediately ends the hand. The pile is cleared and the player who played the 2 leads the next hand. This is the get-out-of-jail card and the reason the President usually keeps theirs back.
Going out
When you play your last card, you’re out. Note the order — first out is President, second is Vice President, second-to-last is Vice Scum, last is Scum. Everyone in between is a Citizen. Play continues until all but one player has gone out.
How you win
The first player to play all their cards becomes President for the next round. The last player still holding cards is Scum, and the trade-up obligation begins. President doesn’t end so much as roll — most groups play until someone gets bored or has to leave, at which point whoever holds the title at that moment claims it forever, or until next time.
Common variations
Social rules
Many groups give the President the right to make up house rules each round — a player has to stand to play, no one can say a specific word, the Scum has to deal. Voice-of-table rule: keep them light, keep them short, drop them if they stop being funny.
Revolution
If you play a pair of 2s on the lead, some groups invert the rankings for the rest of the round (so 3s become highest). Adds chaos. Worth playing once.
Three-of-a-kind clears
Some tables play that any three-of-a-kind, not just twos, clears the pile. Speeds the game up. Recommended with five or more players.
Strategy
- Hold your 2s. The temptation is to drop them when you’re losing — resist. A 2 played at the right moment skips the rest of the table and gives you the lead.
- As President, give your worst pair away in the trade. The Scum has to give you their two best singles, which is almost always more valuable than what you’re giving up.
- Pairs are stronger than singles in late hands. Save them for when the table thins out and counting cards starts to matter.
- Pay attention to who passes. If three players in a row pass on a 9, the 9 is probably the highest card left in play.
When to pull it out
Loud rooms, full tables, evenings that are going to last. Works best with five to seven players. Doesn’t scale down well — three-player President is fine but loses the hierarchy bite.
Origin
President descends from a Chinese game called Zheng Shangyou (literally, “climbing up”), which crossed to the West in the late twentieth century and acquired the social-class trappings somewhere along the way. The hierarchical naming and the trade-up rule are the distinguishing features — earlier ladder-climbing games don’t have them.
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