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Goal

Win more tempos than your opponent in each play. The player with more tempos scores the difference, and the first player to reach 11 points wins the bout.

Cards

Use a standard 52-card deck without Jokers.

Ranking

The ranking is a loop. A face card beats a number card, an Ace beats a face card, and a number card beats an Ace. Within each group the usual order holds, so K beats Q beats J, and 10 beats 9 and so on down to 2. So a K beats a 10, an A beats a K, and a 10 beats an A.

Starting hand

Deal 7 cards to each player, and put the rest face down as the deck. These are the cards you fight with for the whole bout. Cards played to a tempo come back to your hand, so only Cycle changes what you hold.

Play

1. Out of Measure, take turns. Each turn is one action.
   • Cycle. Draw the top 2 cards of the deck, then put any 2 cards from your hand at the bottom of the deck.
   • Change Guard. Stand a card from your hand face up in front of you as your Guard, swap it for the Guard already there, or take your Guard back into your hand.
   • Stall. Do nothing. You can’t Stall straight after your opponent Stalls.
   • Strike. Lead a card from your hand. That opens the first tempo, and both players are In Measure.
2. Circle at most 11 times. Out of Measure allows 11 actions that aren’t a Strike. The 12th action must be a Strike.
3. The Guards set the trump suit. With one Guard out, its suit is trump. With two out, the suit of whichever Guard beats the other is trump. With no Guard out, or two Guards of the same rank, there’s no trump. A Guard stays out until its owner changes it, and it can’t be played to a tempo.
4. In Measure, each trick is a tempo. The other player answers the lead with a card from their hand. They must follow the led suit if they hold it, and can play any card if they don’t.
5. Winning a tempo. A trump beats any card that’s not a trump. Between two trumps, or two cards of the led suit, the loop decides. Any other answer loses.
6. Feint. You can lead an Ace face down as a Feint, when you Strike or when you lead a later tempo. Your opponent can’t see its suit, so they can answer with any card. Then turn the Ace face up and decide the tempo as usual.
7. Disengage or lead again. The winner of a tempo either disengages, which ends the play, or leads the next tempo. A play also ends after 6 tempos.
8. After the play, score it. Every card played to a tempo goes back to the hand it came from, and the Guards stay out. The player who lost the last tempo takes the first turn of the next Out of Measure phase.

Scoring

When a play ends, the player who won more tempos in it scores the difference. So 3 tempos to 1 scores 2 points, and an even split scores nothing. The first player to reach 11 points wins the bout.

If 30 plays go by and nobody has reached 11, the bout ends. The higher score wins. If the scores are equal, the player who won more tempos over the whole bout wins, and if those are equal too, the bout is a draw.

Playing with your own deck

You need paper and a pencil to keep score. Also keep count of the actions taken Out of Measure, the number of plays, and each player’s tempos over the whole bout, for the limits on circling and on plays.

How this version differs

• Out of Measure allows 11 actions that aren’t a Strike, and the 12th must be a Strike. The published rules never force a Strike. Cycle puts cards at the bottom of the deck, so the deck never runs out, and a bout could go on forever.
• A bout ends after 30 plays if nobody has reached 11. It’s decided on points, then on tempos won over the whole bout. The published rules play only to 11 points, and plays that split evenly score nobody, so a bout could go on forever.