Tournament rules

So that nobody argues about +4, stacking and drawing on the night, it is all settled here in advance. Registering means accepting these rules.

⚠️ The exact tournament plan and the final rules of play are drawn up once registration closes and announced before the tournament starts. This page is where things currently stand. What may still change depends on how many people take part: the number of rounds, the table draw and how long a round lasts.

The basics

We play with the standard 108-card UNO deck. Everybody starts with seven cards. Play matches the top card by colour or by number/symbol.

The rules people usually argue about

Situation	What applies here
Stacking	Allowed: a +2 may be answered with a +2, a +4 with a +4.
+2 on a +4 (or the other way round)	Not allowed.
Challenging a +4	We don’t. A +4 may be played at any time.
Drawing	If you cannot play, you draw exactly one card. If it is playable you may play it straight away. If not, your turn ends.
Jump-in	Not allowed. Play goes round in turn.
Saying “UNO”	Required when you play your second-to-last card. Forget, and get caught before the next player has drawn or played: draw two.
Last card	An action card may be your last card.

How the day runs

How many rounds are played and how the tables are drawn up depends on how many people actually take part. That is only settled once registration closes. We draw up the exact tournament plan after that and announce it before the tournament starts.

The principle is the same either way:

1. At most four people play at a table.
2. After each round some players drop out, and the best go up into the next round.
3. Four people sit at the final table and play for the win. 🏆

So the timetable on the front page is a guide. Only the 14:00 start and the 18:00 finish are fixed.

Scoring

We count with the normal UNO card values — just the other way round. In classic UNO the person who goes out is credited with everybody else’s cards, and the first to reach enough points wins. Here everybody writes down their own leftover cards as minus points, and the winner is whoever has the fewest. Same system, opposite sign.

How a round works:

1. A game ends as soon as somebody is out of cards.
2. Everybody else adds up what is still in their hand and writes it down as minus points. Whoever went out writes zero for that game.
3. Cards are dealt again, and the minus points are added up across all the games. They accumulate as the round goes on.
4. When the playing time is up the round is over, even mid-game. The round goes to whoever has collected the fewest minus points at that moment.

Card values:

Card	Points
Number cards 0–9	face value
Skip, Reverse, +2	20 each
Wild, Wild +4	50 each

These are the values from the standard UNO rules.

⚠️ How long a round lasts is not settled yet — 15 or 20 minutes. That depends on the number of players too, and will be announced together with the tournament plan before the tournament starts.

Level on points is decided by who went out more often. Still level: a single game with three cards each.

Arriving late, not arriving

• If you miss check-in, you are placed as soon as you arrive. Rounds you missed count as lost — they cannot be played later.
• If you are not at the table when a round starts, you lose that round after five minutes.
• If you cannot come, please tell us in good time — your place then goes to the next person on the waiting list.

Disputes and rule breaches

• The person supervising your table decides first.
• If they are unsure, the tournament management decides. That decision then applies at every table for the rest of the day and is final.
• Deliberate cheating loses the current round. A repeat means exclusion from the rest of the tournament.
• Unpleasant behaviour towards other players — especially towards children — means exclusion. No discussion.

Everything else

• Phones stay face down on the table during a round.
• The maximum number of players and the number of places left are shown on the front page.
• The tournament management may adjust the format if the number of players requires it — one group round more or less, for example. That is the norm, not an exception: see “How the day runs”.