The deck used for playing Totit is highly unusual, however. This is a special card deck created from two standard 52 card decks in the following manner. First, from both standard decks, in the suits of Hearts, Clubs, and Diamonds, all cards from Ace to 9, inclusive, are retained, but all other cards of these suits are removed. Then, from both decks, the Jacks, Queens, and Kings in the suit of Spades is retained, but all other cards in the suit of Spades are removed. This leaves a 60 card deck to be used for playing Totit.
Determination of seating positions and first dealer can be performed in a variety of ways, with drawing for high cards a common method. Each player draws a card from the shuffled deck and the players seat themselves at the table in order of cards drawn, from high to low. The player drawing the highest card of all is set as the first dealer.
Once the players are seated and the first dealer determined, he should thoroughly shuffle the deck and offer the deck to the player at his right for the cut. The dealer completes the cut and begins dealing the hands. He begins by dealing the first eighteen cards from the deck face-up on the table. After this he begins dealing cards one-by-one and face-down in a clockwise direction around the table, starting with the player at his left. He continues dealing in this manner until each player has a total of seven cards. Any remaining cards in the deck after the deal is completed are set aside and will not be used further in the current hand.
The player to the immediate left of the dealer has the first turn and the turns will proceed in a clockwise direction around the table from player to player.
Each turn consists of a player playing one card from his hand to the table. If he is able to capture a card from the table with the card played he does so, but otherwise he must simply leave the card face-up on the table. The rules for each player on his first turn are slightly different than all his subsequent turns.
On each player's first turn he may capture a card on the table by playing a card of the exact same rank and suit as one already found face-up on the table. If able to make such a capture, he places his card played and the captured card from the table aside in his own face-down captured cards pile. If unable to make a capture in this way, he simply places a card face-up on the table amongst the other cards (called tailing).
On each player's second and subsequent turn, the rules for capturing are changed somewhat. In order to make a capture on these turns, the card need only be of the same rank and not necessarily of the same suit. In fact, if there are multiple cards of the same rank on the table, the player must first capture a card of a different suit than that of the card played on his turn.
Note that the cards of rank Ace, Jack, Queen, and King are all considered to be of the same rank (called rank "One" cards) for purposes of capturing in this game. Thus a court card or Ace can capture any other Ace or court card on the table. There are a few other special characteristics of these rank "One" cards; As with capturing cards of other ranks, on each player's first turn, only a card of the exact same rank and suit can capture another card of the same rank and suit. Thus, a King of Spades could capture another King of Spades or an Ace of Diamonds could capture the other Ace of Diamonds. On subsequent turns, a card of rank one could capture any other card of rank "One" (regardless of suit), however, as with other captures, the preference of a player in capturing with these rank "One" cards must be to first attempt to capture cards which are not exactly identical.
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| Each identical pair found in a player's collected cards earns one point for that player. |
The role of dealer rotates in a clockwise direction around the table. After each player has the opportunity to deal one time the game ends and the player with the highest accumulated total is declared the game winner. If two or more players tie for the highest score, those players must play additional hands until a clear winner is determined.