Asshole

Asshole is the drinking card game with a class system. One hand of cards sorts the table into President, Vice President, Citizens, and the Asshole, and the rank you earn decides who you can make drink, where you sit, and who has to deal. The card game underneath is the same one sold politely as President or Scum; the drinking rules are what the party adds.

What you need

• A standard 52-card deck, jokers out (two decks shuffled together for 8 or more players)
• A drink for each player
• Chairs that are easy to swap, because seats change after every hand
• 4 to 8 players

Setup

1. Deal the entire deck, one card at a time. Some players will end up with one card more than others. That is normal and nobody complains about it.
2. Learn the ranking before the first hand. From high to low: 2, Ace, King, Queen, Jack, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3. Suits never matter.
3. Sort your hand into singles, pairs, and triples. Sets of equal cards are the whole game, so find them now.
4. Pick who leads the first hand. There are no ranks yet, so use whoever holds the 3 of clubs, or the player to the dealer’s left.

How to play Asshole

1. The leader plays one card or a set of equal cards face up. A single 5, a pair of 5s, or three 5s are all legal leads.
2. The next player clockwise must beat it or pass. Beating means the same number of cards at a higher rank: a pair needs a higher pair, a single needs a higher single. Passing does not knock you out; you can play again when the turn comes back round.
3. A 2 beats anything and clears the pile. Play it as a single on top of any set. The player who laid it leads the next pile. The Asshole sweeps the old pile aside.
4. When everyone else passes, the last player to lay cards leads again. The pile is cleared and they start fresh with whatever they like.
5. The first player with no cards left is President. The second out is Vice President. Everyone after that is a Citizen in finishing order, and the last player holding cards is the Asshole.
6. Swap seats and swap cards before the next hand. The Asshole deals. The Asshole gives the President their single highest card, and the President hands back any card they do not want. Then the President leads.
7. Play as many hands as the table wants. Ranks carry over hand to hand, which is the point. A good President stays President for an hour; a bad one is the Asshole by the second hand.

Roles table

Ranks apply from the second hand onward. In the first hand, nobody has a title, so nobody hands out drinks.

Role	Drinking power	Duties
President	Can make any player drink at any time. Nobody can make the President drink. Never refills their own glass.	Leads every hand. Receives the Asshole’s best card.
Vice President	Can make any Citizen or the Asshole drink. Only the President can make the Vice President drink.	Plays second each hand.
Citizens	Can make each other and the Asshole drink.	Play in the order they finished last hand.
Asshole	Cannot make anyone drink. Anyone can make the Asshole drink.	Deals, clears the pile, gives their highest card to the President, plays last.

Variations and house rules

• Equal play skips. Playing a card of equal rank to the one on the pile is allowed and skips the next player. It makes pairs of 2s matter and gives a weak hand somewhere to hide.
• Social. Four cards of the same rank on the pile, whether played at once or stacked across turns, clears it and everyone at the table drinks. Whoever completed the four leads again.
• Revolution. Four of a kind played together flips the ranking for the rest of the hand, so 3 is now the top card and 2 is the bottom. The President’s stack of Aces turns into rubbish in one move, which is the reason people play it.
• Two-card swap. The President and Asshole trade two cards instead of one, and the Vice President trades one card with the second-to-last player (the Vice Asshole). Makes the top seat even harder to lose.
• Counting the sweep. Whenever the pile needs clearing, anyone who notices starts counting out loud. The Asshole drinks the number reached before the cards are cleared. This keeps the Asshole very attentive.
• President’s rule. At the start of each hand, the President makes one rule that lasts the hand (no first names, drink with the wrong hand, say “sir” when addressing the President). Breaking it is a drink. Our house rule is that the rule dies with the President.
• Mercy hand. If the same player is the Asshole three hands in a row, the card swap is skipped for one hand. Optional, and most tables say no.

Tips

• Play low cards early and hoard the 2s. A 2 in hand near the end of a hand is the difference between Citizen and Asshole, because it guarantees you one more lead.
• Do not empty the Asshole’s glass. They will be President eventually, and every drink you ordered is coming back with interest.
• Cap the President’s drink orders before you start, something like five per hand. The role has no built-in limit, and an unlimited President is how a forty-minute game becomes a problem for one person.
• Actually move seats. Sitting in rank order makes the turn order obvious, and it is the part of the game that stops arguments about whose go it is.