Gather players and choose a dealer
Shuffle the deck and deal all cards to players, face down
Pick the first player (often the player left of the dealer)
On your turn, flip your top card face up
Compare the flipped cards
If your card is higher, you take both cards and place them in your win pile
If your card is lower, you place your card into the opponent’s win pile
If the cards tie, start a “war”
During a war, each tied player places a set number of face-down cards (commonly 3) and then flips a face-up card
Compare the new face-up cards
The winner of the war takes all cards from the war into their win pile
If another tie happens during war, repeat the war procedure with the next set of face-down cards
If you run out of cards during war, you lose the game
Continue turns until one player has all the cards or no cards remain for a player
Declare the player with all cards (or the last remaining cards) as the winner
Optional rule variations to decide before playing: number of face-down cards in war, whether to use jokers, and whether A is high or low