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| Each card in a player's layout can be replaced with a specific denomination card from the deck, from Ace through Ten. |
The card game Trash can be played by 2 or more players. For two players one standard 52 card deck is used, and for 3 or 4 two such standard decks would be shuffled together and used. For 5 or more, 3 decks would be used. In this game, there is no specific concept of card ranking, although the card denominations do have a positional equivalent on each player's card layout. Also, the different suits have no bearing on the play. After the deal, the remaining cards would be placed in a face down stock in the center of the table as the draw pile or garbage heap.
To begin, each player is dealt one face-down card at a time in a clockwise rotation starting at the player to the immediate right of the dealer. This continues until each player has a total of 10 cards.
As the players receive their cards, they should place them in a specific layout on the table in front of themselves. This can either be one long row of 10 cards or two rows of 5 cards each. Each of these cards is represented by a specific numbered card in the deck. The first card in the layout would be represented by an Ace, the next by a Deuce (two) and so on, in an ascending sequence all the way to the last card in their layout which would be equivalent to a ten. The significance of this configuration will be seen shortly.
After all cards are dealt and arranged by the players, the player to the dealer's immediate left takes the first turn. He begins by drawing the top card of the stock. If this card is an Ace through Ten, he replaces the face down card in that corresponding position in his layout with this card. He would then turn over the card being replaced in his layout. If this card can also replace a face-down card in his layout, he replaces that card with the one just exposed. He can continue in this way until the exposed card is either a number that has already been replaced or he draws a Jack or Queen. If a King is exposed during play, this is a wild card and may be used to replace any remaining face down card on a player's layout. If a player draws the card that corresponds to the position of a wild card on his own layout, he may replace the wild card with the correct number and use the wild card somewhere else on his layout.
Once the player is unable to make further plays, he then places the last exposed card (that he was unable to use) next to the stock pile as a discard pile, ending his turn.
The next player in a clockwise rotation then has his own turn. He plays in a similar manner to the dealer, with one difference. Instead of taking the top card of the stock, he also has the option to take the top card of the discard pile (the last player's discard) instead, if it corresponds to a face down card on his own layout. The game continues in this way until one player, during his turn, manages to expose every card in his layout. This player then wins that round. However, after a player wins the round, each other player has one more turn in which to try to fill their own layout.
After a player wins the hand, the cards are all gathered, reshuffled and dealt again by the next dealer in turn. However, the player who won the last round (as well as any other players who were able to clear their layout during the last turn of that round) is dealt one fewer cards than they had on the last round. All other players receive the same number of cards as they had on the last round.
Because a player is dealt one fewer card on the next round after successfully clearing his layout, the player thus needs to clear a smaller layout (i.e. after clearing a ten card layout, on the next round the player receives only nine cards). A player wins the game when he is down to a layout of one card and he is able to expose that card by drawing an Ace or wild card (King) during the hand before another player wins the round instead.
There are several variant rules that are sometimes used when playing this game, including the following: