This is an original game I made. I do not remember all the inspiration for it, but I did play it a few times against myself and twice against another human. I'm sure it could still use some work.
You need one french-suited (aka "standard") 52 cards deck (no jokers) and 2 players. I'm sure it could work with more players but it might need more rule tweaking for that.
The goal is to tactically collect cards into your three piles in order to score the most points.
Cards are ranked A-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-J-Q-K, the ace being counted as a low card.
Each player is dealt a hand of 3 cards, then 3 cards are placed face up on the table to make the 3 center stacks, then the remainder of the deck is placed face down next to the stacks.
Players alternate taking turns. During their turn, a player must perform exactly one of those two actions:
A player has to perform one and only one of those two actions and may not pass their turn. Then the turn goes to the next player.
Each player has 3 piles that start empty. Any card can be added to an empty pile to "start" it.
Cards in a pile must be kept ordered by rank. When not empty, cards may only be added to either ends of a pile: the new card must either be of lower or higher rank than all other cards in the pile.
For example, if a pile contains 3, 5, and 6, only a 2 or lower, or a 7 or higher can be added. 3, 4, 5, and 6 can't be added, despite the pile not containing a 4.
Once the deck is empty, the two actions in a turn are changed as players are no longer able to draw from the deck:
If a player is unable to play (meaning the deck is empty, that player's hand is empty, and none of the top cards of the stacks can fit into that player's piles), then that player has to pass that turn.
They may play again later on if the cards on top of the stacks change to something they can add to their piles.
When all players are forced to pass, the game ends and players count their points.
You could either decide that whoever got the most points wins, or to play multiple games, accumulating the points until someone reaches a certain total (for example 100).
Players get points in three ways:
This makes the maximum of points a single player can have be 35. 13 from having a 13-cards long pile, 9 from each pile having both an Ace and a King, and 13 from having collected all Diamond cards.
From the very few times I played against another human, I'd say it's been fun but it could definitely use some work. Here are some disconnected thoughts about it.
You are very incetivized to use the cards in your hand rather than the shared pools because you don't want to give your opponent more options.
Discarding a card to lock down a key public card for your opponent feels great, but with 3 piles it's very easy to leave enough room open for more cards.
Counting the cards that are played to see if you should skip a number on your designated long line, and also to see what Diamonds are left that you'd need room for, that feels great too.
Getting a long pile feels maybe a bit too easy. We could easily get them to 10 or longer. Not sure if that's a good or a bad thing.