Kadi

How to play

Kadi is a Kenyan card game for two to five players, using a standard 54-card deck. You can learn it in two minutes. Getting good at it takes rather longer.

Setup

Four cards each.

Deal four

Every player gets four cards, whatever the player count. The rest becomes the draw pile.
Turn one over

The top card starts the discard pile. If it is a special card it goes back and the deck is reshuffled — play always begins on an ordinary card.
Play left

The first player starts clockwise. Kickback cards will change that soon enough.

Your turn

Match the rank, or match the suit.

That is the whole basic rule. Play a card that matches the top of the discard pile by rank or by suit — or draw one and pass.

Same rank, same suit, or a Joker — which counts as every suit at once.

Playing more than one

You may put down a group in a single turn, as long as the first card is a legal play. Same-rank cards go together; penalties and questions have their own stacking rules. Order matters — the cards resolve exactly as you lay them.

The six that matter

Special cards.

Jump

Skips the next player. They can block it by playing a Jump of their own — and each extra Jump skips one more player.

Question

Q · 8

Demands an answer. You must follow it yourself with a valid answer card, or draw. Questions can be stacked before the answer lands.

Kickback

Reverses the direction of play. The player it would have skipped can block it with their own King, sending it back.

Penalty

2 · 3 · Joker

Forces the next player to draw — two, three, or five cards. Penalties chain, so the pile grows until somebody takes it or blocks with an Ace.

Ace

Name any suit and the next player must follow it. An Ace also blocks a pending penalty outright, whatever suit it is.

Joker

JOK

Every suit at once. Playable at any moment, answers any question, and carries the heaviest penalty in the deck.

Out of turn

You can fight back without the turn.

Two cards let you act when it is not your go — the only times in Kadi that happens.

Block a Jump

About to be skipped? Play your own Jump immediately and it passes on to the next player instead.

Block a Kickback

If a King would turn play away from you, answer with a King and send the direction back where it was.

Block a penalty

Any Ace stops a pending penalty dead, regardless of suit — but blocking does not let you name the next suit.

Winning

Call it before you can win it.

Announce "Niko Kadi!"

Say it after your turn and before the next player completes theirs. Without it, you cannot win on the following round — however good your hand is.
Finish with ordinary cards

A winning final play is regular cards of the same rank, or a question answered with regular cards. You may never finish on a Jump, Kickback, penalty, Joker, or Ace.
Do it in one

Any other move resets your status and you must call again. And nobody can win while another player is sitting cardless.

House rules

Toggles in Settings.

Strict mode

Attempt any play you like. If it turns out to be illegal, the cards come back and you take a two-card penalty and lose the turn.

Default: off

Ace after anything

Lets an Ace be played on any card during normal play, regardless of suit.

Default: on

Four Jokers

Doubles the Jokers in the deck, from two to four. Penalties get considerably nastier.