Ravensburger’s main German manual; all 80 cards at every player count.

← On a small screen, scroll the diagram horizontally. →

Full pack before opening: two hands of 20 and 40 in concealed stock. No rows yet; first determine the opening 11. Fans and piles are schematic; the rules specify card counts.
Full pack before opening: two hands of 20 and 40 in concealed stock. No rows yet; first determine the opening 11. Fans and piles are schematic; the rules specify card counts.

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Aim and equipment

Use the special 80-card pack: numbers 1 to 20 in four colours, red, yellow, green and blue. A standard pack cannot replace it unchanged. For 2 to 6 players, empty your hand first into shared colour rows growing from 11. Our diagrams use original colour-and-number labels rather than the publisher’s artwork.

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Setup and deal

Shuffle all 80, keeping every colour even with two players. With 2 or 3 players deal 20 each; with 4 deal 15; with 5 deal 12; with 6 deal 10. The rest is concealed stock. The red 11 holder starts by laying that card alone. If absent from hands, use the 11 priority yellow, green, blue. With no 11 in any hand, reshuffle and redeal completely. After the opening card the left neighbour immediately plays, clockwise thereafter.

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Legal actions

Open a new colour only with its 11. Extend an endpoint by the adjacent number of that colour: down through 10 to 1, up through 12 to 20. Never skip a number or change colour. On an ordinary turn play at least one card if able, but you may play more into any open rows or start other 11s. Each additional card must be legal after the previous one. You may tactically withhold some playable cards, but cannot withhold them all and pass.

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Scoring

If no hand card fits at the start of your turn, draw stock top. Play a fitting card immediately and end your turn. Keep a nonfitting card and draw again; stop after the first played card or after 3 draws. Drawing does not open an ordinary multiple-card playing turn. With empty stock and no fitting card, simply pass. Never recycle the exposed rows into stock.

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Ending the game

The first player to lay their last card wins the game immediately. For a session agree on 5 games: sum the numbers left in hand as penalties, winner 0. Lowest cumulative penalty wins and tied leaders share victory. Remaining 19 and 2, for example, score 21 regardless of colours. The fixed session length is our teaching agreement; the scoring method follows the manual.

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Context and variants

Ravensburger publishes Elfer raus! as a separate numbered pack. This profile follows the German main manual’s compulsory play when possible; other translations and variants may allow different withholding. Dates printed on the checked manual identify its edition rather than establish invention. Alternative starts and reducing the two-player pack are excluded here.

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Worked example

Only blue 11 is open. Your hand includes blue 10 and 12 and red 9. On an ordinary turn play both blues to make 10–11–12, keeping the red card because its colour is unopened. If instead you had to draw and the first fitting draw were blue 12, playing it would end your turn immediately.

← On a small screen, scroll the diagram horizontally. →

Before playing. Hand fragment: Blue 10, Blue 12, Red 9. Blue row: Blue 11. Blue 11 is open. An ordinary turn may extend both ends. After playing. Hand fragment: Red 9. Blue row: Blue 10, Blue 11, Blue 12. Both blues are legally played; red remains because its colour is unopened. Blue 10 and 12 extend blue 11 in one ordinary turn; red 9 remains in hand.
Blue 10 and 12 extend blue 11 in one ordinary turn; red 9 remains in hand.

Common questions

May I withhold every fitting card?+

No: at least one must be played.

How many draws when blocked?+

Until the first fitting card, at most 3; playing it ends the turn.

May I skip a number?+

No: an adjacent number and matching colour are required.