Aggravation

🎯 The idea

Eleven rounds. Each one names a contract — a set of melds you must lay down before you can start getting rid of cards. Finish all eleven first and you win. Miss a round and you play it again while everybody else moves on, so falling behind costs you real time.

📋 The eleven rounds

A set is cards of the same number, any suits. A run is cards in order, all the same suit.

📖 What the words mean

Contract: What this round requires you to lay down. Round 3 is “one set of 3 and one run of 4”, so that is your contract until you make it.
Meld: One group of cards — a single set, or a single run.
Set: Three or more cards of the same number. Suits do not matter.
Run: Three or more cards in order in the same suit. The ace is high or low, never both, and it does not wrap around: Q-K-A is a run, K-A-2 is not.
Wild: A card standing in for another one. Jokers are always wild. Twos are wild too — but you may also play a two as an ordinary two, and you decide which each time.
Natural: A card being itself, not standing in for something.
Going down: Laying your contract face up on the table. You lay exactly the contract — no extras.
Laying off: Once you are down, adding spare cards to anybody’s melds, including your own. This is how you empty your hand.
Going out: Getting rid of your last card. That ends the round for everyone.
Buried: A discard that somebody covered up. Buried cards can never be taken again — see below, because this one surprises people.
Steal: Taking the card another player just discarded, at the cost of an extra card off the pile.
Swap round: The one lap around the table at the start of each round where everybody may trade one card with the pile.

🔒 Buried cards — the rule that catches people

A card is buried the moment somebody discards on top of it, and it stays buried forever.

Here is the part that surprises everyone: if the top card gets stolen, the card underneath is uncovered again — and it is still buried. You will see a face-up card on the pile that nobody is allowed to take. It wears a 🔒 so you know the game has not broken. Draw from the face-down pile instead, and the next discard makes the pile live again.

🔄 The swap round

Every round starts with one lap around the table. On your turn you may trade one card from your hand for the card face up on the pile — or pass. What you put down is immediately there for the next player, so think about what you are handing on.

No drawing, no going down and no stealing during the swap round. Taking turns is the fairness rule here.

🃏 Your turn

1. Draw — the face-down pile, or the discard if it is not buried.
2. Go down if your hand makes this round’s contract.
3. Lay off spare cards onto any melds already on the table, once you are down.
4. Discard one card. Always. Every turn ends with a discard, even the turn you go out.

📥 Going down — you pick the cards

Tap 📥 Go down… and empty frames appear above your hand, one for each meld this round needs. Tap a card to put it in; tap it again to take it back. A frame goes green ✓ when it holds a real meld, and ✅ Lay it down starts flashing when all of them do.

This matters more than it sounds. Going down commits six to ten cards at once, and every card left in your hand counts against you at the end of the round — so which three kings you lay, and whether you spend a joker or keep it back for a lay-off, is your decision to make.

In a hurry? ✨ Fill for me fills the frames in for you. It only fills them — nothing is laid down until you say so, and you can move any card first.

⇅ Sorting your hand

The button next to the round number switches your hand between by number and by suit. It is worth changing every round: round 1 wants 2 sets of 3, so sorting by number puts your sets side by side; round 2 wants 2 runs of 3, and sorting by suit puts your runs side by side instead.

Sorting only changes how the cards are arranged on screen. It never changes your hand, and it will not disturb cards you have already put in a frame. Wilds always sit at the left-hand end so you can count them at a glance.

🫳 Stealing

When somebody discards, anyone else may take it — but you also take a card off the face-down pile as a penalty, so a steal always costs you two cards.

Four steals each per round. Once you have gone down you cannot steal at all. If two players want the same card, the one whose turn comes round soonest gets it — no racing to tap first.

You may never steal past 19 cards in hand. The button simply is not offered.

🏆 Scoring

When a round ends, count what is still in your hand: numbers 5, face cards 10, aces 15, twos and jokers 20.

Points add up across all eleven rounds and low is good. First player to finish round 11 wins; if more than one finishes together, the lower total takes it.

🙂 Levels

🌱 Sprout: two opponents who play straight and never steal.
🧭 Scout: three opponents who take useful discards, lay off, and steal.
🏆 Ace: four opponents who hoard wilds, work the swap round and take every steal worth taking.

A level changes how well they play, never what they can see. They only ever see their own hand and the table, exactly like you.

📚 Where these rules come from

Aggravation is a Contract Rummy variant — a family of games from the 1930s with no single owner and no official rule book. These are one household’s rules, written down as they are actually played, and there is no outside authority to appeal to. Where we had to choose, we say so below.

Things other tables do differently:
• Swapping a wild off the table. Some houses let you replace a wild in a meld with the real card and take the wild back. We do not.
• Advancing after a miss. Some houses move everyone to the next round regardless. Here you repeat the round you missed.
• Steal limits. Four per round here; some houses use four per game, which makes stealing disappear halfway through.
• The ace. High or low here, never wrapping. Some houses allow K-A-2.

📜 The rules

🖨️ A card for the table

Print the rules on one sheet, fold it into a card and keep it in the deck box. One side, no scissors. Open the printable rules card

🃏 Aggravation