Mau: A Card Game of Memory, Reflexes, and Patience

by R.C. Underwood

revised 20.jun.04

http://reality.sgi.com/rcu/mau.html

Mau is a card game similar to Uno, not for the faint of heart. Mau requires nerve, precision, and speed and thrives in those with the ability to detach themselves in a not un-Zen-like way from their egos. Becoming frustrated or defensive leads to failure. Only the quick serene mind will win the game. There are those who love Mau and play it obscenely well, and there are those who hate Mau and almost drew blood the one time they played it. Caution: People who seem normally sanguine and balanced may reveal a competitive or violent streak while playing Mau (sorry, I can't take responsibility for anyone's actions but my own). Any way you slice it, playing Mau for the first time can be a landmark life experience.

The origin of Mau is a mystery. The story I heard in 1990 was that Mau was invented by a New Jersey native, from whom it transferred somehow to some M.I.T. graduate students, one of whom (perhaps Jeff Keller) then brought Mau to the University of California at Santa Cruz, where the virus spread around Silicon Valley and the Bay Area. But Chris Soeffner claims that Mau has existed for more than 30 years. "I always thought that it was invented in Germany, where it is played extensively by kids of all ages," writes Chris. James Lockman reports, "I learned [Mao (sic)] on a plane to Italy from some of my Yale Band chums. Where they got it, I do not know." Ginger Ogle says "I learned mau mau while traveling in Europe in 1973. Some Germans taught it to us and told us the name comes from a bloodthirsty and ruthless (New Guinean? African?) tribe called the Mau Maus. We spent many hours playing mau mau - Germans, Brits, Italians and Danes all seemed to know the game. So it has been around for at least that long!" And Darryl McCollum spins this fanciful yarn: "I and many acquaintances in the U.S. Navy were playing a very similar game in 1986 while stationed in Antarctica. In 1986 I formally wrote the rules to the version which we had been playing. We called the game Mau Mau in honor of one of our shipmates' then recent visit to Mombasa and his introduction to the Mau Mau of Kenya." (I'm not kidding. These are actual emails.) The truth is out there, Scully.

Here is my rendition of the rules of Mau:

Play goes roughly like this: the dealer deals everyone the same number of cards, flips the top card on the deck, and play proceeds clockwise with the person next to the dealer. Each person either plays a card that matches the top card's rank (number) or suit (clubs, spades, hearts, diamonds) or draws one card from the deck. The object is to get rid of your cards.

To make things a little more interesting, there are 5 special ranks: aces, sevens, eights, jacks, and jokers.

• If someone plays an ace, then play reverses direction (ex., counterclockwise) and remains that way until another reverse occurs. If the first card of the game is an ace, then play proceeds counterclockwise with the person next to the dealer. Mnemonic: The letter A on the ace card is pointy like an arrow, and arrows point in different directions.

• If someone plays a seven, then the next person cannot do the usual thing, which is to play a card or draw a card; instead they must either play another seven or draw two cards from the deck one at a time. (Picking them up one at a time works in their favor, as explained under Spamming.)

• If someone plays an eight, play skips the next person. Mnemonic: Think of the eight as two conjoined lily pads, and imagine frogs hopping on them, skipping along.

• Jacks are wild. When someone plays a jack, then anyone can call the suit. The next person must play a card to match the called suit, or draw a card. The suit of the jack does not need to match the suit of the card it is played upon. But you cannot play a jack on a jack.

• Jokers are also wild. When someone plays a joker, the two persons on either side of that someone race to play a card, any card, on that joker. Note that direction of play can reverse after someone plays a joker.

Okay, so we've got aces which reverse direction, sevens which are draw-two, eights which skip, jacks which anyone calls wild, and jokers which are a wild race. Sounds like Uno, right?

Well, to twist the screws a bit more, we throw in a bit of sadistic verbal nonsense inspired by Roberts' Rules of Order and Monty Python:

• Spades are special. When anyone plays a spade, they must say out loud, "Spade." For extra flourish, you can say the rank first, as in, "Two spade," or you can make puns, as in, "David Spade." You gotta call a spade a spade.

• When anyone goes from having two cards or zero cards to having one card in their hand, that person must say "Last card."

• When someone plays their last card, they must say "Mau" (rhymes with "cow"), which puts a nice note of finality on the proceedings. When you go out with a jack, however, you must instead say "Mau Mau." This makes sense in a way because it's easier to go out with a jack, as jacks are wild. When you go out with a joker, you must instead say "Oom papa mau mau," because, after all, jokers can be played on anything at any time.

• You cannot swear or use the name of a deity from any agreed upon major religions.

• You may not ask any questions.

• Gesturing is allowed.

• If you want to ask a question, or to give the dealer time to reshuffle the deck because it has run out of cards, then you must first say "Point of order." Then everyone must place their cards face down to avoid temptation to strategize while you are asking your question or the dealer is reshuffling. When your question has been answered, the deck is ready, and conversation has ceased, someone says "End point" and play resumes. Special note: If you're Jorge Garcia, then you're not allowed to end points. (It's a long story... ;)

• You cannot call a point of order solely to swear.

• No one can call a point of order when someone is drawing two cards (or a multiple of two cards) in response to a seven being played. Otherwise it's too easy for everyone to lose count of how many cards the person has drawn.

• If anyone makes a mistake on any rule and someone notices and calls them on it, then the person must take a card. The usual way to call a penalty is to say "Penalty: not calling a spade," for instance. If someone mistakenly calls a penalty, that too is a penalty. If you make a mistake when playing your last card, then you have to pick up the card you attempted to play in addition to a penalty card. If no one calls you on your penalty by the next time play gets to you, then you get away with it. (heh heh heh)

"Whoa," you may be thinking, "This is insane. How can this be fun?" Well, let's take a look at a sample round. Here we have three players:

MADHAVAN: What? Are we playing this stupid Mau game again? I don't know why I let you talk me into this, RCU.

RCU: (finishes dealing, say, nine cards to each player) Pipe down, Mau Boy. (flips over the first card: ace of spades) Ace spade. (sotto voce) Normally play would proceed clockwise, and the first person to play would be to the dealer's left, but here the first card played was an ace, which reversed direction of play.

IAN: (counterclockwise to [right of] RCU, plays seven of spades) Spade.

MADHAVAN: (to right of Ian, wrinkles brow in consternation) Fuh--I mean, um, shoot. (studies hand, searching for a seven)

IAN: Oom papa mau mau! Bang! Swish! Wa-hoo!

RCU: (rolling eyes) Note that no rule prevents players from spurious outbursts intended to distract. Note also that Madhavan wisely refrained from cursing.

MADHAVAN: (reluctantly draws two cards) I'll get you, Ian.

RCU: (to right of Madhavan, plays seven of diamonds) Let's see if Ian has any diamonds.

IAN: Is it my turn?

MADHAVAN: (crowing puerilely) Ha! Penalty: asking a question. Draw a card, Ian.

IAN: (nonchalantly) Just giving you a friendly crutch, my dear boy. (draws a penalty card for asking a question, then plays seven of clubs)

MADHAVAN: (frustrated) Hey! (draws four cards, one at a time, two for the seven of diamonds and two for the seven of clubs)

You get the idea. The insipid rules defy memorization yet they pile up on top of each other in a way that demands concentration. And there are just a few more rules intended to accelerate card attrition, direction reversals, and general hysteria:

• Taking too long to play earns you a penalty card. "Too long" is usually around 3 seconds or until someone who's had too much caffeine that day calls you on it.

• You cannot play a jack on a jack, but you can play a joker on a joker.

• The dealer can deal as many cards as she wants, as long as the count is even. Penalty can be called if someone believes the count is uneven. If even, the penalty caller takes a penalty card. If uneven, the dealer must move cards among the hands or deal additional cards to make the hands contain the same number of cards; for each card she moves to accomplish this, she must take a penalty card into her own hand.

• If you go out successfully and win the game, you win the honor of dealing the next hand.

• No one can look at their cards before the dealer does. A nod to Martha Stewart here. (Historical note: This page included this nod to Martha Stewart since the mid-1990s. With recent events, the phrases "look at their cards" and "dealer" took on new conspiratorial undertones.)

• Anyone can draw a card at any time.

• When you have to draw multiple cards, you must draw each card separately.

• When you want to play multiple cards, you must play each card separately.

• Playing out of turn is a mistake. If someone calls you on it, then you must take a penalty card.

• Flinching, which means you take a card from your hand and begin to play it then take it back into your hand, is also a mistake. You must take a penalty card if someone calls you on it.

• When you exhaust the deck, someone calls a point of order and shuffles all but the top card (or more, if special-rank cards are in the process of accumulating) into a new deck.

• Any number of decks can be shuffled together and used. This may be necessary if the number of players is larger than about four, or if you just don't want to have to shuffle the deck in the middle of the game. Playing with multiple decks also introduces the ability to spam.

Spamming is playing the exact same card (same rank and suit) on another card out of turn and saying "Spam" or, in some cases, "Wonderful Spam." (You must play with multiple decks to spam.) Think about all those aces reversing direction, all those jokers causing adrenaline-charged slap races, and all those additional sevens and eights, and you can start to see the maniacal possibilities. Here are the rules of spamming:

• When you spam, play skips all intervening players and continues from you in the appropriate direction.

• When a card is spammed the first time, the player who spammed says "Spam." The second time, "Spam." The third time, and every subsequent third time (ex., sixth time, ninth time), "Wonderful Spam." Another nod to Monty Python.

• The same player can spam several times in a row.

• Remember you cannot play more than one card at a time. This means you cannot slap down a fistful of cards at once and scream, "Spam spade spam spade wonderful spam spade mau!" You have to play each card separately. You can still scream if you want, as long as you don't swear or ask a question.

• You cannot play a jack on a jack, but you can play a joker on a joker. (Yeah, I know I mentioned this above, but it's really tempting when multiple decks are in play.)

• When sevens are spammed, the number of cards to be drawn increases by two for each seven played. The last person to play a seven dooms the unfortunate soul next in line to pick up all those cards. The only way to avoid picking up all those cards is to spam out by playing the exact same seven of matching suit. The remaining number of cards to be drawn, plus two for the seven you just played, then falls onto the next person in line.
  
  For example, say Deb, Steve, and Shanti each spam the seven of spades, each saying "Spam spade," except Shanti who has to say "Wonderful spam spade," because hers was the third spam. Now Jeroen, sitting next to Shanti, has no sevens. He begins drawing eight cards, one at a time: two for the initial seven that started the ball rolling, then two for Deb's seven, two for Steve's seven, and two for Shanti's seven. The third card he draws is the seven of spades. Grinning, he plays it and says "Spam spade." Now RCU, sitting next to Jeroen, has to pick up seven cards, which is the five that Jeroen offloaded to RCU plus two for the seven of spades that Jeroen played to offload them.

• When eights are spammed, the skips accumulate, and that many intervening players are skipped from the player who played the last eight.
  
  For example, say Saskia, Matt, and Radhika each spam the eight of clubs, saying "Spam" for each eight played (except Radhika, who says "Wonderful spam" for the third eight). Since Radhika played the last eight, a total of four players are skipped, one for the initial eight that got the spam rolling, plus three for each spammed eight.

Several people have emailed me about other rules since I wrote this page originally. The ones I found most amusing follow. Note that some of these contradict the above rules so you may need to alter them before playing with these, while other rules could simply be added to make the above game more fun:

• No one can talk at all during the game without first calling a point of order. I think this would slow down the game a lot. Calling a point of order just to call a spade a spade, for instance, seems rather heavyweight.

• When you win, you either get to or must (depending on taste, and all players should agree before play begins) make up a rule or change an existing one. If all players agree after the next round that the new rule (ahem) sucks, then the new rule goes away for the next round. I can attest this is a fun variant, having played some twisted games where we assigned rules to every single rank. If you play this in a pub, be prepared to get a few odd looks.

• No one can reveal the rules. You have to infer the rules from watching people play and taking penalties, perhaps after a brief merciful opening explanation from the dealer. Ooh, this sounds harsh, eh? For the record, the folks who taught me Mau didn't use or explain this rule, hence I wasn't breaking it by writing this web page, ho ho. Here I'd like to give a shout out to Leland Kusmer and his posse, for reasons known only to them.

• When you win, you receive an award of points based on the cards still in all the other players' hands; the first player to reach some agreed upon total (such as 100 points or 500 points) over a series of games wins the session. It's kind of like gin rummy. The special cards (aces, sevens, eights, jacks, and jokers) are each worth some agreed upon special number of points. I imagine aces and eights could be worth 10 points; sevens, jacks and jokers could be worth 15; and all the other cards could be worth 5. My thinking: Aces and eights aren't all that special because they just muck with order of play, so they're not worth much more than a normal card. Sevens can do a little more damage and put more points in your opponents' hands, so they're worth more. Similarly, jacks and jokers are so easy to play that having them in your hand when someone else goes out should earn you a sizable ouchie. But I just made all that up. If you know the real way to play Mau with points, please let me know.

• Playing a 4 means the next person must draw four cards. If that person draws a 4, they can play it immediately, in which case the remaining cards are transferred to the next player who must draw an additional four cards. Basically, a 7 on steroids.

• You must say "Thank you" when receiving a penalty card. But don't say "Thank you, sir, may I have another?" unless you want to risk a penalty for asking a question.

• You cannot call anyone by their given name (for example, saying "Bob, it's your turn" would earn you a penalty card).

• You cannot say "Sorry."

• No pointing.

• On playing not only a spade but also a diamond, you must say "spade." I guess diamonds are pointy and could be used to dig so I see the connection. Go, tool-using primates!

• On playing the king of hearts, you must say "Suicide king."

• There is a Grand Mau, a Mau veteran who officiates the game (is the only person to call penalties), deals, and is the only person allowed to speak. To me, this more dictatorial version seems to enforce the hypothesis that the eponymous Chinese leader inspired the game.

• When you play a 2, you must play again. Note that this means you cannot play a 2 as your last card. If you play a 2 and it is the only card in your hand, then you must draw another card (and say "last card" of course).

• If you play the 6 of spades as the last card, you must say "Mau, six of spades, ooh baby baby" and dance joyously around the room.

• When you play a 3, you must say "Chicka chicka whoop."

• When you play a 5, you must say "Lubby dubby prime numbers."

• When you play a diamond face card, you must say "Bling bling."

• When you play an ace, you must say "One is the loneliest number." It might be funnier for a round if you had to sing it (see Aimee Mann).

• When you play a 6, you must say "Have a bad day."

• When you play the ace of spades, you must say, in addition to "spade," "Tally ho!"

• When you play a queen, you must say "Hail to the queen."

• If someone is acting silly (for example, making goofy expressions or arranging their cards into a smily face), you can call a penalty on them. Apparently this is called "the drug addict rule." This variation would conflict in spirit with the rule that anyone can say anything they want at any time, but it would go quite well if you're playing instead with the variation that nobody can say anything at any time.

• When you play a seven, you must say "Have a nice day," and the next person must say "Thank you" if they draw. But if the next person plays a seven, then that person must say "Have a very nice day," and the next next person must say "Thank you very much" if that person draws. And so on, adding a "very" and "very much" per seven played, until someone draws.

• If two people simultaneously say "Point of order," then the point is null and void and both unfortunate speakers get a penalty card.

• You may play a jack on a jack.

• When you play a jack, it must match the suit of the previous card. When I learned Mau, I learned that jacks don't need to match the suit of the previous card; in practice, most people forget that jacks have that powerful flexibility and superstars can use that to their advantage, hee hee. Or you could just use this variation instead to even the field.

Phew. If you are acquainted with Mau and observe some rule missing on this page, please feel free to email me and I'll update this page. Note: Emails to me during December 2003 or January 2004 were inadvertently erased before I read them; if you're inclined, feel free to resend your message. The set of rules presented here is not the reduced axiomatic set, in that some are actually consequences of other rules, but this is the way my mind remembers them. Have fun!

More Mau references:

• UC Davis' Internet Society version of Mau