Description

Pandeng is a climbing card game for 2 to 4 players using a deck of 57 cards. 4 players can also play as teams of 2 sitting opposite each other.

A similar game is said to have been played by Imperial officials during the Han Dynasty in China ... for money!

In Pandeng you want to collect as few cards as possible. Each player starts with a hand of six cards from a deck that contains cards numbered 2-11. One player starts by playing a single card or multiple cards with the same value, calling out the sum of the cards as it is played.

So if the player plays a 4 (or two 2s) he deals it to the center of the table and calls out “4”. The next player has to play a card (or cards of equal value added together) to surpass that sum or else collect all of the cards played so far. They then start with one or more cards again in a new deal.

The number 8 (long regarded as the luckiest number in Chinese culture) is the strongest card in the deck, it beats them all! So what beats an 8? Two 8s! And two 8s succumb to three 8s and so on. There are eight 8's in the deck, and when to use these 8s is a key strategy in Pandeng!

As soon as the draw pile of cards is gone, and one player is out of cards, the game ends immediately, and everyone else adds the cards in their hand to the cards that they've collected counting the cards for a score. After playing as many rounds as the number of players at the table, whoever has the lowest score wins!

The 57 card deck consists of:

Three 2s
Three 3s
Four 4s
Five 5s
Six 6s
Seven 7s
Eight 8s
Nine 9s
Nine 10s
Three 11s

—description from the designer