The pack is shuffled, and four cards are dealt to each player. The only person to see each individual hand of cards should be the player themselves to whom the hand has been dealt.

The game starts by one player calling out "1, 2, 3, pass". On 'pass', each player passes any one of their cards, face down, to the player to their left. This repeats, until somebody has a hand of four cards of the same value, at which point they grab one of the pens in the middle of the table. This signals that all other players should do the same. The person without a pen at the end drops out, and the whole game repeats without that player. This continues until there are only two players remaining. The winner of this round is the overall winner.

If a player grabs a pen without having four of a kind, then they lose the round. However, faking is allowed, and if by motioning to grab a pen without actually touching one this causes other players to grab for themselves, the first to touch one of the pens loses the round.