The players do not take turns; physical speed and alertness is required to play faster than the opponent.
The entire pack is split between them, and each player makes five stacks in front of themselves in a row as follows:[5] There is an alternative setup where each person lays down four cards face up separately, and a stack of ten face-down cards with one face-up card on top, similar to the setup for Canfield.
This process continues until each player's row has face-up cards of five different values.
Players must leave their stacks on the table, and only one card can be played at a time.
As during setup, face-up cards of the same rank may be placed on top of each other within the rows.
If the player with no spit cards in their hand is also the one who gets rid of their rows first, they win the game.
[6] Spit is similar to the game Speed in the sense that players attempt to get rid of all their cards first.
In Spit, each player has a row of piles, usually five, each with the top card face up.
In Speed, each player has a single face down stock pile and a hand of five cards.