Overview
Kingly™ is a strategic card game played with standard 52-card decks. The goal is simple: complete four sets of five cards before your opponent. A “set” can be built in a few different ways — as a set of five matching ranks, as a descending straight, as a descending straight flush, or as a special Kingly set of five Kings.
Setup
Kingly can be played with two to four players. The number of decks in the card pool matches the number of players: for example, in a two-player game you shuffle two full decks together into a single shared draw pile.
Each round begins by dealing four cards to each player. These four cards create four “rows,” each of which can potentially become a completed set of five. When you play on PlayKingly.com, the site handles dealing and layout automatically, and you can optionally choose to play against a computer opponent.
Objective
The objective in each round is to be the first player to complete all four sets of five cards. When a player finishes their fourth set, the round ends immediately and all players’ rows are scored. You can play a single round or a multi-round match (up to four rounds), adding up scores across rounds to determine an overall winner.
Card combinations
You can complete your rows in four main ways:
- Set of five-of-a-kind: five cards of the same rank (for example, five 3s or five Jacks).
- Descending straight: five cards in legal descending order from a root card. Straights can “wrap” at the top end, so a sequence like 3–2–A–K–Q is valid, and suits do not have to match.
- Descending straight flush: the same descending straight pattern, but all cards share the same suit.
- Kingly set: a special set consisting of five Kings.
Turn structure
On your turn, you always begin by drawing a card. You can either take the top card from the draw deck, or the top card from the discard pile. Once you draw, that card becomes your “pending” card and must either be added to a row (if legal) or eventually discarded at the end of your turn.
After drawing, you may:
- Add the pending card to one of your rows, as long as it continues a legal set or run and does not push the row above five cards.
- Move an entire row of cards on top of another row, as long as the resulting combined row remains valid and contains no more than five cards. You cannot move only part of a row; the whole row must move together.
- Use a King (if the pending card is a King) to wipe an incomplete row clean, optionally leaving the King as the new root card for that row.
You can keep drawing and playing cards on your turn as long as you are able to make legal moves. When you can no longer place the pending card or rearrange rows in a legal way, you must end your turn. Any unplaced pending card will be discarded automatically at that point.
Using Kings to wipe a row
Kings have a special power: when you draw a King from the deck or discard pile, you may use it to completely clear one of your incomplete rows. All cards in that row go to the discard pile. Then you decide whether to leave the King as the new root card in that row, or discard the King as well and leave the row blank. This “reset” mechanic is a powerful way to abandon a row that has become difficult or impossible to complete.
Reshuffling the deck
If the draw deck runs out of cards during a round, the discard pile (minus its top card) is reshuffled to form a new deck. Play then continues as normal, with players drawing from the reshuffled deck.
Ending the round
A round ends as soon as a player completes four full sets of five cards. At that moment, the game stops and all rows on the table are scored. Only completed sets score positive points; incomplete or blank rows impose penalties on the losing players.
Scoring completed sets
- Straight: five cards in legal descending order. The score equals the value of the root card. Numbered cards count as their face value (2–10), Jacks and Queens count as 10, Aces count as 11, and Kings count as 15.
- Straight flush: a straight where all five cards share the same suit. The straight score is doubled.
- Set of five (non-King): five matching ranks other than Kings. The score is twice the card value.
- Kingly set (five Kings): always scores 50 points.
Scoring incomplete and blank rows
The winner of the round does not receive any penalties for their incomplete or blank rows: those rows simply score zero. All other players apply negative scores for their incomplete rows:
- Blank row: −10 points.
- Normal incomplete row: a partial straight or mixed row; penalty equals the value of the root card.
- Incomplete set of matching cards (non-Kings): penalty equals −2 times the card value.
- Incomplete Kingly set: any row that starts with K but is not a completed five-King set or five-card straight; penalty is −25 points.
Stalemates and strategy
In rare situations, all of the cards needed to complete a row may already be locked inside other players’ finished sets. When this happens, neither player can finish their final row. On PlayKingly.com, this type of stalemate can be detected automatically: the round ends, and the penalties from the remaining incomplete rows apply as usual.
As you gain experience, you’ll learn to:
- Recognize when a row is unlikely to be completed and use a King to wipe it.
- Prioritize high-value root cards (Aces, Kings, and face cards) for your strongest sets.
- Merge partial rows into complete sets instead of chasing too many risky rows at once.
Playing multiple rounds
You can play Kingly as a single standalone round or as a multi-round match. On PlayKingly.com, match scores can be tracked across up to four rounds, adding each round’s total to a running cumulative score. This format rewards consistency and long-term strategy rather than a single lucky round.
To dive deeper into the official rules, card values, and examples, you can always download the Rules PDF or return to the main game page to practice against a computer opponent.