Prší (raining/it’s raining) is a Czech variant of the card game Mau-Mau^A). The rules are quite simple to learn and remember. Consequently, I play this game a lot with family and friends.

To play, I recommend the use of german suited cards, although you can use French-suited cards provided you remove all the numbers lower than 7.
The cards are split into 4 suits, or colors, which are: Hearts (or Red), Bells, Acorns and Leaves (or Green). Each suit contains 8 cards, which are: Ace, King, Upper (equivalent to a Queen), Lower (equivalent to a Jack), Ⅹ, Ⅸ, Ⅷ, Ⅶ.
Although these are all the cards that you usually play the game with, you can theoretically play with more cards - although all you’d be doing is adding a number of useless cards to the deck.

First you should determine who the dealer is. The dealer has the task of mixing the cards and dealing them to the rest of the players. Every round, the dealer changes and the new dealer will usually be the loser of the previous round.
At the start of the game, each player receives either 4 or 5 cards (this depends on choice and doesn’t impact the length of a game too much). Once every player receives their cards a single card is placed in the middle (bottom down) and the rest of the cards are placed in a stack (top down) next to it.
As the game is played in turns, next is to determine who starts. The player who starts is usually the one who is to the right of the dealer. Play order is then clockwise, but can be anti-clockwise if you feel like it.

The goal of the game is to get rid of all your cards. You do this by placing your cards on the middle card. However, you can only place a card if you have one that matches the colour or number/type of the middle card. So if the middle card is a king of bells, you can place an 8 of bells or a king of hearts but not a 10 of hearts. If you can’t place any card (or you choose not to), you have to take an extra card from the stack.

The rules given above are the basics, next are the cards that do a little more than just decrease or increase your card count.
The only ones that really matter (without taking special rules into account) are the 7s, Uppers and the Aces.

These cards force the next player to take two cards from the stack. This isn’t unavoidable though. If they have a 7 themselves, they can place it down… and then the next player is forced to take four cards. This can go on until all 7s have been placed (for a total of 8 cards for whatever unlucky bastard gets hit with that). When you get hit with a 7, you can’t take your turn and it moves to the next player.

These cards are the “change the colour” cards. They can be placed on any card and they change the colour to whatever the player desires. So if you have a bunch of bells, but the current colour is leaves… place an Upper and now you can place your bells.
These are very simple

An Ace freezes the next player’s turn. Similar to 7s, they can avoid this if they place an Ace themselves. Yeah, not much else to add.

The rules given are basically the standard. Wherever you go in Czechia, they will all be familiar with them. These next ones are extras that make the game a bit more interesting. I’ve picked them up over the years and now I shall share them with you.

This rule makes the King of Leaves actually useful.
When you place this bad boy down the next player has to take 3 cards from the stack, no exceptions. You can’t place another card to prevent it.
Combining it with the previous 8 card combo will lead to hilarity or sorrow depending on which side you’re on.
You can alternatively think of it as the “Tactical Nuke” rule.

When a player finishes their turn they win, they’re out of the game… right?
Well, with this rule they won’t be for a brief moment. If the player that goes before them places a 7 of Hearts they will be forced back in. However, if this last player doesn’t have a 7 of Hearts, can’t place it or chooses not to then the opportunity is lost.

This rule is fairly simple. When a player loses a game, they have 1 less card the next game. The purpose is to spice the game up a bit… Sometimes playing 20 rounds back-to-back while passing the time gets a little repetitive.

• Despite what this article said before… I decided to check whether it was a czech card game or not. As it turns out… it’s a variant of a card game called “Mau-Mau” (at least that’s what our friend Wikipedia says).
• In the past, I had noticed the game Uno had a lot of similarities to Prší… yeah Uno’s also a variant of Mau-Mau.
• The Wikipedia page includes a few extra rules… so I’ll just uh… inspire myself with them.
• Games I’ve played in the past occasionally lead to some interesting moments that have led to weird tips and tricks.
  • For example, instead of placing an Upper to change the colour to one you want, you should instead pick a colour that you don’t have at all. By the time it’s your turn again, the colour will be the one you wanted all along.