Two players compete in trying to collect all the cards in the deck. To play, all cards are dealt one by one to each player face down in a pile. The dealer goes first and flips over his top card from his pile onto the center of the table. The other player flips over his top card onto the played card. If the player places on top of the pile a card with a number (Officers), he captures the pile unless his opponent can recapture them. Recapture is achieved by the player flipping over an Officer card in the amount of turns of the previous displayed numbered card. For example, if the player placed a ‘Cop’ card which is numbered 3, then the opponent would have 3 turns to try and place on top of that card another numbered Officer card. If he cannot recapture, his opponent gets to take all the cards in the pile. Stop Thief consists of 32 cards. There are 20 thief cards and 12 officer cards. The officer cards include 4 cards depicting each a detective, cop, and police chief.