Spite and malice

Spite and malice, also known as cat and mouse, is a relatively modern American card game for two or more players. It is a form of competitive solitaire that can be played with two or three regular decks of cards, and it has a number of variations. It is a reworking of the late 19th-century Continental game crapette, also called Russian bank. The game had a well-deserved following in the 1970s after the bridge expert Easley Blackwood saw it played on a cruise ship and published its rules. David Parlett also identifies three early English patiences by Mary Whitmore Jones, carbouche, obstruction and dowager's patience, that bear a remarkable similarity to it. Commercial variations include Hasbro's Spite and Malice and Mattel's Skip-Bo.