How to Play Ninety-Nine

Objective

Keep the running count at 99 or below on your turn. If you cannot play a card without taking the total past 99, you lose one of your three lives. Play continues until one player remains.

Setup

Give each player three tokens of any kind: chips, coins, matches. These are your lives. Deal three cards to each player and place the rest face down as the stock. The player left of the dealer starts, and the count begins at zero.

How to play

On your turn, play one card face up to the pile, announce the new total, then draw one card from the stock so you always hold three. Number cards add their face value. Jacks and queens add ten. Most cards are just numbers, but a handful change the game.

Play passes to the left until someone plays a four, which reverses the direction. When the stock runs out, shuffle the pile (except the top card) to make a new stock.

1. 1Play one card to the pile
2. 2Say the new total out loud
3. 3Draw a card so you hold three again
4. 4Lose a life if every card would push the count past 99

If every card in your hand would take the count over 99, you lose a life, the pile is cleared, and the count resets to zero for the next player.

Winning

There is no point score. Each player starts with three lives and loses one every time they bust. A player with no lives left sits out. The last player with a life wins.

Variations

Some tables let a nine act as a pass instead of a zero card. Others make the ten add or subtract at the player’s choice, or turn the three into a skip card that jumps the next player.

For younger players, play to 50 and use only the number cards plus the king as the jump card.

For a betting version, each life is a coin in the pot and the winner takes the lot.

Tips from the table

Hang on to your fours, nines, tens and kings. They are the only cards that save you when the count is sitting at 99.

Once the count passes 90, count the safe cards you have seen played. If the tens are gone, the pressure is on whoever is next.

A four adds nothing and turns play around, so it can send the pressure straight back to the player who just left you at 97.

Frequently asked