Once the fourth card is placed in any of the four stacks, a "pickle round" begins. If a player cannot or chooses not to play a card, they may exchange up to three cards from their hand for the same number of cards from the pile of unused cards before ending their turn.
The rule book encourages players to be creative when placing cards one possible creative play is to place "universe" beneath "dictionary", as the word "universe" can be found in a dictionary. After placing a card on top of or underneath a pile, the player then draws a card from the stack of unused cards to replenish their hand. A card may not be placed between two cards, as it must be placed either on top of the entire pile or underneath the entire pile. If the player places their card beneath the pile, the object on their card must fit inside the object it is placed under (for example, "person" may be placed beneath "car"). If the player places their card on top of the pile, the object represented by the noun on their card must be larger than the card it is placed over (for example, "oven" may be placed on top of "pie"). On their turn, a player may take a card from their hand and place it under or on top of one of the four piles in the center of the table. To start the game, each player is dealt five cards, and four cards are placed face up in the shape of a "plus" sign in the center of the table. In a Pickle contains 320 cards, each displaying a noun.