Skip-Bo Rules

Skip-Bo is a card game for two to six players in which you race to get rid of your stock pile by building shared piles in order from 1 to 12. It is a boxed version of the traditional game Spite and Malice. Minnie Hazel “Skip” Bowman of Brownfield, Texas, began producing a boxed edition under the name Skip-Bo in 1967; International Games bought it in 1980, and Mattel bought International Games in 1992. This guide covers the Skip-Bo rules step by step: the cards, the set-up, a full turn, the three kinds of pile, winning and scoring, partnerships, playing with ordinary cards, strategy and odds.

Skip-Bo Rules at a Glance

The Skip-Bo Cards

A Skip-Bo pack has 162 cards: twelve each of the numbers 1 to 12, and 18 Skip-Bo cards, which are wild and can be played as any number. The numbers are printed in blue (1 to 4), green (5 to 8) and red (9 to 12), but the colours make no difference to play. Remove any blank cards from a new pack; they are not used.

Setting Up

1. Deal the stock piles. Shuffle and deal each player a face-down stock pile: 30 cards with two to four players, 20 cards with five or six. Turn the top card of your stock face up and leave it on the pile.
2. Make the draw pile. Put the rest of the cards face down in the middle. This is the draw pile.
3. Leave room for the other piles. Up to four building piles will be started in the middle during play, and each player will start up to four discard piles in front of them. None of these exist at the start.

How to Play Skip-Bo

The youngest player goes first, then play moves on to the next player. On your turn:

1. Draw up to five. Take cards from the draw pile until you hold five.
2. Play onto the building piles. Add cards in order from your hand, the top of your stock pile and the tops of your discard piles. Each time you play your stock card, turn over the next one.
3. Use all five, draw five more. If you play every card in your hand, draw five more at once and carry on.
4. Discard to end your turn. When you can’t or don’t want to play any more, put one card from your hand on one of your discard piles. Discarding your last card does not count as emptying your hand, so you don’t draw again.

The Three Kinds of Pile

Building piles are shared. A new one must start with a 1 or a Skip-Bo card, and cards go on in order: on a 4 you can play a 5 or a Skip-Bo card, then a 6, and so on. When a pile reaches 12 it is complete and set aside, which frees the space for a new pile. There can never be more than four building piles; if all four are in use, a 1 has to wait. If the draw pile runs out, shuffle the completed building piles to make a new one.

Your stock pile is the one you are trying to empty, so playing its top card should always come first. Only the face-up top card can be played.

Your discard piles belong to you alone. You can put any card on any of your four piles, in any order, but only the top card of each can be played later.

Winning and Scoring

The first player to play the last card from their stock pile wins the game. To play a longer match, the winner of each game scores 25 points plus 5 points for every card left in the other players’ stock piles, and the first player to reach 500 points wins.

Skip-Bo Variations

Skip-Bo With Regular Cards

Three standard 52-card packs with their two Jokers each make a full Skip-Bo pack. Aces count as 1, cards 2 to 10 as their number, Jacks as 11 and Queens as 12; the 12 Kings and 6 Jokers are the wild Skip-Bo cards. That gives twelve of each number and 18 wild cards, 162 in all, and the suits play no part.

Skip-Bo Strategy

• Save Skip-Bo cards for your stock pile. In 39,995 simulated two-player games, a player who used Skip-Bo cards only to reach their stock card won 60% of games against one who also used them to play out hand cards.
• Play from your stock first, then from your discard piles, then from your hand.
• Stack discard piles downwards. A 9 on a 10 on an 11 can later be played as a run of 9, 10, 11.
• Watch the other players’ stock cards. Avoid leaving a building pile one below a card they can play.
• Empty your hand when you can. Playing all five cards gives you five fresh ones in the same turn.

Skip-Bo Odds

• Game length: in a two-player game with 30-card stock piles, the winner needs a median of 36 turns; in the 10-card short game, about 16.
• Wild cards: 18 of the 162 cards (11%) are Skip-Bo cards, so a 30-card stock pile holds 3.3 of them on average, and 45% of opening hands include at least one.
• A fast start: your first stock card is a 1 or a Skip-Bo card, and can be played straight away, 18.5% of the time.

The game-length and strategy figures come from 40,000 simulated games per set-up, with both players following the same simple strategy.

More Card Games

If you like Skip-Bo, try Phase 10, which works through ten combinations instead of one long run. For a fast two-player race, see Spit, and for a patience-style family game, Kings Corner.

A family board game with cards: Sorry!, with every card explained.

Skip-Bo: frequently asked questions