The Setup:
For three or four players, take a normal deck of playing cards and remove the Jokers. (For more than four players, see the FAQ.) Take the Aces out and lay them, face up, off to the side by themselves; then shuffle the deck.

The Deal:
Choose a player to deal first, and have that player deal seven cards face down to each player. Place the remaining cards face down in the middle of the table (or floor, or wherever you are playing.) As play progresses, two more piles of cards will acculmulate next to the draw pile: the discard pile, and the shot pile (see shooting or the example game). The player to the dealer's right should deal the next hand, and the player to the dealer's left takes the first turn in each hand. (In this way, the dealer in one hand will take the first turn in the next.)

The Play:
Before play begins, the dealer must choose the direction of the initial pass (left, right, or across in a standard, four-person game). All players must examine their cards and choose three to pass in the direction indicated. Each player must pass his/her three cards before looking at the cards passed to him/her.

After each player has passed and received three cards, play begins and moves clockwise (to the left) around the table, beginning with the player to the left of the dealer. On each turn, each player may take a single action (as described below), then discard, and then draw from the draw pile. No action may be taken after the discard. ALWAYS DISCARD BEFORE DRAWING; this is different from most card games and very important. Players may draw the top card from the discard pile*, and may never draw from the shot pile.

The five possible actions from which a player may choose on every turn are:

1. Nothing - A player can simply discard and draw, taking no action if he/she so chooses.
2. Show one Couple - A couple is a King and Queen of the same suit. To show a couple, a player must physically take the couple out of his/her hand, show it to the other players (most importantly, to the scorekeeper), and then return it to his/her hand (see scoring).
3. Pass two Cards - A player may lay down a 9 on the discard pile and then state which direction everyone will pass (left, right, or across in a standard, four-person game). Each player passes two cards in the direction indicated before looking at the cards he/she receives. (The passer will receive two cards back from his/her left if he/she passed to the right.) The passer must then discard and draw as usual; his/her hand is reduced by one card by passing.
4. Pull one Gun - To pull a gun, a player removes the gun cards from his/her hand (see guns) and lays them, face up, on the table in front of him/her. A player may lay down only one gun per turn, but there is no limit on the total number of guns each player may lay down in a hand. Guns are not worth points in themselves, but once a gun is on the table, a player may use it to shoot cowboys in subsequent turns, and cowboys are worth points.
5. Shoot - On each turn in which a player elects to shoot, he/she may take one shot with each of the guns pulled out in previous turns. Shooting is what makes this game truly unique, and not a little complex. There is a detailed explanation of shooting on the Guns & Shooting page. Basically, every gun you have on the table gives you an extra chance, per turn, to take other players' Cowboys or end the hand.

1. Discarding a 10 - 10's are worth ten points when discarded. In order to keep the ten points until the end of the hand, players should discard 10's on the table in front of them rather than in the discard pile. No player make take another player's 10's after they have been discarded onto the table.
2. Discarding a 5 * - 5's are valuable cards because they are required for the two most powerful guns. Thus, if a player discards a 5, he/she may draw two cards. This may be either the top two cards on the draw pile or the top card on the draw pile and the top card on the discard pile.

As the hand progresses, and players accumulate guns and collections (see scoring) the draw pile will grow smaller. It will be depleted many times in the average hand. Each time this happens the dealer should simply take the discard and shot piles (except for the top discard and shot cards), shuffle them together, and turn them over to become the new draw pile.

The Ending of a Hand:
Each hand can end in one of two ways:

1. When all the 10's and a .22 have been laid on the table, or
2. When all four aces have been distributed as protection for cowboys (see shooting)

As soon as one of the two cases above is met so that the hand is ended, all players lay down their hands for everyone to see, and each player's points (see scoring) are tallied up and added to his/her running total from any previous hands.