One of the players begins by shuffling or cutting the deck, and each player starts with a hand of five cards. Players draw and discard cards, and play them – sometimes playing them upside-down – in order to enhance their hands until the "Angel of Death" card turns up in the deck. The game is over when this card appears, and all players must show their hands. Non-matching cards are a losing hand. Drawing a card already discarded is considered cheating, though cheating appears common and possibly even expected in this game.