Every Slap Pattern in Egyptian Rat Screw, Explained
A slap is only as good as your certainty that it is legal. This page walks through all seven patterns this game knows: the four classic ones that are always on, and the three house rules you can switch on in Settings. For each one you get example piles, the near-miss that catches people out, and how often it actually turns up.
How a pattern is read
Every pattern is read from the top of the pile, which is the card that was just played, working down. Nothing older than the last four cards matters, with one exception (Top-Bottom, below). So you never need to remember the whole pile, only the last few cards and, for one house rule, the very first card.
Ranks run from 2 to 10, then Jack (11), Queen (12), King (13) and Ace (14). The Ace is always high in this game. It never counts as 1, and that matters for Tens and for Four in a Row.
Suits never matter. 7♥ 7♣ is exactly as good a Doubles as 7♥ 7♦.
1. Doubles: two of the same rank in a row
The card just played has the same rank as the card directly under it.
9♣ 4♦ J♠ J♥ → slap
5♠ 8♥ 8♣ → slap
The near-miss: ranks that are one apart, like 8♥ 9♣. Seen out of the corner of your eye they look like a pair, and in a fast game that is enough to make a hand move. When it happens in this game, the coach line on the table tells you that you were one rank off, so you learn which pairs fool you.
How often: about one card in every seventeen completes Doubles. It is the most common pattern and the one bots hit first, so speed matters more here than anywhere else.
2. Sandwich: same rank with exactly one card between
The card just played matches the card two below it. Whatever is in the middle does not matter.
3♦ Q♣ 6♥ Q♠ → slap
2♠ K♦ 2♥ → slap
The near-miss: a gap of two cards, like Q♣ 6♥ 9♦ Q♠. Those two Queens are a card too far apart to count. It feels like a sandwich because the matching cards are both visible on the pile, but they are not touching the middle card from both sides.
Why it is harder than Doubles: your eye is drawn to the top two cards. Sandwich asks you to look past the second card to the third. Players who are quick on Doubles are often a beat late on Sandwiches, and that beat is where bots win piles.
3. Tens: two number cards that add up to ten
The top two cards are both number cards (2 to 10) and their ranks sum to exactly ten.
3♠ 7♦ → slap
6♥ 4♣ → slap
5♦ 5♠ → slap (it is also a Doubles)
The full list is short enough to memorise: 2 + 8, 3 + 7, 4 + 6 and 5 + 5. A 10 can never be part of a Tens, because nothing below 2 exists to pair with it, and an Ace never helps because it is worth 14, not 1.
The near-miss: sums of nine or eleven, like 4♣ 5♥ or 3♦ 8♠. This is the single most expensive mistake in the game. The arithmetic is easy at rest and surprisingly hard half a second after a card lands, so if you are not sure, the better choice is usually to let it go.
Face cards never count. K♠ Q♥ is not ten of anything, but it is something else: see Marriage.
4. Marriage: a King and a Queen side by side
The top two cards are a King and a Queen, in either order.
K♣ Q♦ → slap
Q♠ K♥ → slap
The near-miss: a King or Queen next to a Jack or an Ace, like K♦ J♣. Your brain registers "two picture cards" before it registers which ones. The coach line on the table answers it with “Marriage needs King and Queen, nothing else”.
How often: rarely. There are only eight Kings and Queens in the deck, and they also start face-card challenges, so a Marriage often arrives in the middle of a challenge, when everyone is watching the countdown instead of the pile. That is exactly when it is worth watching for.
5. Triple (house rule): three of the same rank
The top three cards share a rank: 9♣ 9♥ 9♦.
At a normal table this pattern can never be slapped on its own, because the first two nines were already a Doubles and someone should have taken the pile then. Triple only matters if your group plays with Doubles switched off, which some families do to make the game slower and more about Sandwiches and Tens. Switch it on in Settings → House Rules.
6. Four in a Row (house rule): a run of four
The top four cards climb or fall by exactly one each time.
4♠ 5♦ 6♣ 7♥ → slap
K♥ Q♣ J♦ 10♠ → slap (falling runs count too)
J♣ Q♥ K♠ A♦ → slap (the Ace sits above the King)
A run does not wrap around: A♣ 2♥ 3♦ 4♠ is not a run here, because the Ace is high. Changing direction in the middle, like 5 6 5 6, is not a run either.
The near-miss: a run of three. You see 5 6 7, your hand is already moving, and the fourth card has not been played yet. The game counts that as a wrong slap and says the run was one card short.
7. Top-Bottom (house rule): the top card matches the bottom card
The card just played has the same rank as the first card that started this pile, however deep the pile is.
A♠ 5♥ 9♣ 2♦ A♦ → slap
This is the only pattern that tests memory instead of eyesight. The bottom card is usually buried and you have to remember it from when the pile began. A useful habit at a Top-Bottom table: say the first card of every new pile to yourself.
The near-miss: the bottom card matching the card under the top one. You remembered correctly, but you were one card late, and the game tells you so.
Which pattern gets the credit
Sometimes one card completes two patterns at once. 5♦ 5♠ is both Doubles and Tens. The pile goes to whoever slapped first either way, but the game names the pattern it recognised, checking in a fixed order: Triple, Doubles, Four in a Row, Sandwich, Tens, Marriage, Top-Bottom. Only patterns switched on at your table are checked. This matters in the Legends modes, where rarer patterns are worth more. At the Table of the Gods, for example, a Marriage wounds a god more than twice as hard as a Doubles.
Practising the patterns
The fastest way to learn the shapes is Practice Mode on the main menu. It deals scripted hands where every pattern turns up, nothing you get wrong costs a card, and each slap is explained as it happens. When the classic four feel automatic, switch on one house rule at a time against Easy bots before taking it online.