Snap is a popular card game in which players deal cards and react quickly to spot pairs of cards of the same rank. Cards are either dealt into separate piles around the table, one per player, or into a single shared pile. Gameplay is related to Egyptian Ratscrew. In China, Snap usually refers to the gameSlapjack.
The pack of cards is dealt out among the players in face-down stacks as equally as possible. Playproceeds with the players taking it in turns to remove a card from the top of their stack and place it face-up on a pile alongside it. If two cards on the tops of any of these piles are ever identical, the first player to shout "Snap!" takes both face-up piles and adds them to the bottom of their own stack. The player who accumulates all the cards wins. A "snap pool" is created from matching stacks if two players shout "Snap!" at the exact same time, or from a player's own stack if they shout "Snap!" in error. Players can shout "Snap pool!" instead of "Snap!" if the matching cards also match the pool, and may take the pool for doing so.
Variations
Cards can be played onto a single shared stack, and players call "snap!" if two consecutive cards on this pile are identical. This makes the game easier for younger children. In this version, players may race to call "snap" while slapping the central pile, making the game similar to Slapjack. The game is often one of the first card games to be taught to children and is often played with special packs of cards featuring popular children's characters from television programmes or recent films.
In J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter novels, including Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry and his friends sometimes play a game called "Exploding Snap", in which some of the cards will explode at random during the game. In the Goon Show, Eccles will yell "snap", sometimes during a poker game or while on the telephone.
In other cultures
In Germany and Austria, the game is known as Schnipp-Schnapp or Spitz, pass auf!
Literature
Gööck, Roland. Freude am Kartenspiel, Bertelsmann, Gütersloh.
