I'm Out

I'm out. Two little words that have been inciting rage in card shedding games for generations. “I'm Out” is another fine entry into the CMYK Magenta line that can leave you feeling like a Rummy player with a hand full of face cards when the round ends....or it can leave you with riding the high of a Uno player who just played a draw 4 at the best possible moment.

Like most shedding games, I'm Out is about emptying your hand before anyone else. It uses a custom deck of 62 unsuited cards ranging from 2 to 13 with the distribution going heavy on the middle numbers (There are eight copies of the number 7 and only two copies of both 2 and 13). Players form a row of cards by playing as many cards as they want of the same number with the caveat that they must play at least as many cards as the stack next to it. If a player can't (or doesn't want to) play to either side of the row that is formed, they take a card from the row and they are “out” for this round. Once all players are out, the row is discarded and a new one is started. This can leave you with interesting decisions when you can play but you wonder if it would be more advantageous to pass, take an extremely low or high card that you have a match for in your hand, and hope to get it out early the next round.