Napalm Rules

Napalm was contributed to pagat.com by Michael Sanderson. It appears to come from the north-eastern United States, was played at Brandeis University in Massachusetts, and has a following in the Maryland and Virginia area. Andy Latto reports learning the same game in 1979 under the name Whipsaw.

Four to seven players take part, using a standard 52-card deck without jokers. Hands are ranked according to the standard poker hand rankings, except that aces always count high, even in the low stage.

Besides chips, the game needs a supply of tokens that are clearly different from the chips. Tokens have no cash value. They start in a central store and are awarded to players during play.

There are two ways to win money: by being the first player to collect five tokens, which wins the pot; and by winning side bets, each equal to the current pot, from other players during the game.

A game consists of a series of hands. The deal passes one place to the left after each hand.

At the start of each hand, with each new dealer, every player antes one chip into the pot. By agreement, the ante may be made only with every other new dealer, to slow the growth of the pot.

The pot is not won at the end of a hand. It carries forward and keeps growing until one player has five tokens (Article 5).

Stage one. Two-card hands rank as follows: a pair of aces is highest; any pair beats any two unpaired cards; between unpaired hands the higher top card wins, and the second card is compared only if the top cards are equal. The lowest hand is 3-2. Straights and flushes have no value with two cards.

Stage two. Players are looking for the lowest five-card hand. Aces are still high, and straights and flushes count as they do in high poker, so they are bad hands. The lowest possible hand is 7-5-4-3-2, not all of one suit, as in deuce-to-seven ranking.

Stage three. Each player selects the best five of their seven cards to make a normal high hand.

After stage three the cards are thrown in and shuffled, the deal passes to the left, and a new hand begins with stage one.

At each stage, starting with the player to the dealer's left and going clockwise, each player in turn declares yes or no. Each player normally has only one chance to declare.

Challenging the dealer. If every other player has said no and the dealer, declaring last, says yes, each other player in turn may challenge the dealer by changing their no to a yes.

Once all declarations are made, the stage is settled as follows:

4.3(a) One yes. That player receives one token from the store. No cards are shown.

4.3(b) Several yeses. The players who said yes show their hands to each other privately. The best hand for that stage wins, and each other player who said yes pays the winner a side bet equal to the total chips in the pot at that moment. No token is awarded and the pot itself is untouched.

4.3(c) A tie among the yeses. Players who tie for the best hand pay nothing to each other. Each player who said yes with a worse hand pays a full pot-sized amount to each of the tied winners.

4.3(d) No yes. No chips or tokens change hands.

As soon as any player collects five tokens, or another number agreed before play, the game ends immediately and that player takes every chip in the pot.

Because side bets are paid directly between players, they can add up to more than the final pot. The player who wins the pot is not necessarily the biggest winner of the game.