Each player deals their deck of cards in front of them to form their tableau, like so:
There should be space in the middle of the table for the Common Area, which is where foundations are placed.
Have someone count down to start the game. There are no turns in Nerts.
Nerts plays a lot like Patience solitaire, where the foundations are instead common across all players.
Players take 3 cards at a time from the Stock pile and place them face up next to the Stock pile, to make the Waste pile.
The top card of both the Nerts pile and the Waste pile are the playable cards, where they can be added to the foundations in the Common Area, or added a player's own Work piles.
To add to a Work pile, the card must be of an opposite colour and one value lower than the visible card.
Example: You can place a 7♦ on an 8♠, but not on an 8♥ or a 9♠.
To add to the foundations in the Common Area, the card must be the same suit and one value higher than the visible card. Aces (low) can be played to make new foundations.
Example: You can place a 7♦ on a 6♦, but not on an 5♦ or a 6♣.
If the Stock pile is exhausted, then turn over the Waste pile to form a new Stock pile.
If every player is stuck (cannot, or decides not to make a legal move), then everyone places all their cards from their Waste pile on top of their Stock pile face down, and move the top card of the Stock pile to the bottom.
Once the player's Nerts pile is exhausted, they may call "Nerts!" to end the game.
Scoring is calculated with the following formula:
The first player to reach 150 wins.