Top 10 games you and your family can play with a deck of playing cards - The Game Store
I know that it's been a long couple of weeks stuck at home while we all do our bit to fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. So I decided to accumulate a list of the top 10 games that you can play at home with a standard deck of cards and a quick summary of how to play them. So here is the list of my top 10 games you can play with a deck of cards in no particular order.

1. Uno

Everyone knows this game, it's a classic, normally played with a specially designed deck of cards, however, if you don't have these cards you can easily play with a regular deck of cards. Instead of the 4 colours usually used in Uno, you use the 4 suits on the cards (Spades, Clubs, Diamonds and Hearts). So what do the different cards do? Well, the numbers 2-9 are used just like in Uno, the action cards are replaced by the Jack, Queen, King and Ace.

Jack

The jack card is used to replace both the skip and reverse card normally in Uno, whenever you play one of these cards you can choose to either skip the next player or reverse the playing order.

Queen

The queen acts as a pickup 2 card, it can be played whenever the suit matches or after another queen.

King

The king lets you change the suit and can be played after any card.

Ace

The ace lets you change the suit and make the next person pick up 4 cards and it can be played anytime.

2. Go Fish

In Go Fish, five cards are dealt to every player if there are 3-6 players involved, or if there are only two players, seven cards. All remaining cards are placed face down in a pile. Every turn you can ask a player of your choice if they have a card for example "John give me all of your 9's", however you can only ask for a card that you have, if the person has that card then they have to give you all of that card that they have and you get another turn, if they don't have any of the cards then they say "Go Fish" and you draw a card. If you get the card that you asked for show everyone, place it in your hand and continue your turn, otherwise keep the card you draw hidden and the person who said "Go Fish" starts their turn. Go Fish continues until one of two things happen either someone has no cards remaining in their hand or the pile of cards that you can draw from runs out. The winner is the player who then has the most matches a set of four cards. If you have younger children playing make a match a set of two to make them win more often and keep the game moving.

3. SNAP

In snap the aim of the game is to get all of the cards into your hand. There are two common ways to play snap, both start the same way by shuffling the deck of cards and splitting the deck into equal piles, no one is allowed to look at their deck of cards. The first and easiest way to play snap that I recommend playing with younger children is by having one single pile of cards that players place their own cards on to. The first player places a card face up in the middle of the table and each following turn players place a card from the top of their deck on the top of the pile, whenever a card that is placed is the same number as the card below it then whoever notices it first yells out "SNAP" and they get all the cards in the pile. The more advanced version of snap that I recommend playing with the older kids is to have each player have their own piles and instead of yelling "SNAP" whenever there are two cards one after the other on the pile you yell "SNAP" when there are two of the same number card on separate piles.

4. Rummy

To start deal one card at a time face down, beginning with the player on the left. When there are two players each person gets 10 cards each, three or four players each player gets 7 cards and with five or six players each person gets 6 cards. The remaining cards are placed face down on the table, forming the draw pile. The top card of the draw pile is turned face up and becomes the upcard. It is placed next to the draw pile to start the discard pile. When there are only two people playing, the winner of each hand deals the next. When there are more than two players, the deal passes to the player on the left of the previous dealer.

The object of the game is for each player to try to form matching sets consisting of three or four of a kind, or three or four of consecutive numbers from a single suit.

The player to the left of the dealer starts, players can either draw the top card of the draw pile or take the top card of the discard pile and add it to their hand. The player may also place down on the table, face-up, any matching set. If they do not wish to lay down a matching set, then they discard one card, face-up, onto the discard pile. If the player has drawn from the discard pile, they may not discard that card on the same turn.

On their turn, a player may add one or more cards from their hand to any matching set already shown on the table. For example, if threes are showing, they may add the fourth three; if 10, 9, 8 is showing, then they can add J, or Q, J, 7, or 7, 6.

When a player gets rid of all of their cards, they win the game.
If you can add the rest of your remaining cards to matched sets then you do not need to discard a card to win, either way, this ends the game and there is no further play.
If the last card of the draw pile has been drawn and no player has won the game, then the next player, in turn, can either take the top card of the discard pile or turn the discard pile over to form a new draw pile, (they do not shuffle it) and draw the top card. Play then continues as normal.
When a player wins a round they receive points from the remaining cards in the other players' hands. An ace is worth 1 point the 2-10 cards are worth their face values and the King, Queen and Jack are worth 10 points each. You then start a new round and continue for as long as you want to.

5. Pig

To begin sort the deck of cards into piles of four of a kind and set a pile for each player aside, discard the remainder of the piles. Shuffle the chosen piles and then deal each player 4 cards. The aim of pig is to collect four of a kind, each turn you pick a card from your hand and pass it face down to the player on your left. This continues until a player has four of a kind in their hand when they do they place a finger on their nose when you notice someone with a finger on their nose you must also place a finger on your nose, even if you don't have 4 of a kind. The last player to notice this and place a finger on their nose get the letter "P", "I" or "G" given to them. Whenever a player receives all three letters they are eliminated, continue until there is only one player left.

6. Old Maid

Before playing remove one of the queens from the deck of cards. Then deal all of the cards face down to each player, while this is happening players can sort their cards making sure to keep them hidden from all other players. If you have any matching pairs, either with the same number or picture then place them face up in front of you. If you have a matching set of 3 then only place the two down and keep the spare.
To begin play, the player to the left of the dealer fans their cards out in their hand so they can see their cards but no one else can. They then offer the cards to the player on their left who picks a card at random, if that card makes a pair then they place it in front of them. That player then offers their fanned cards to the next player and so on until all of the cards have been put down on the table apart from the lone queen aka the "Old Maid" whoever is holding the old maid at the end of the game loses.

7. Crazy Eights

To begin deal each player 7 cards and place the remaining cards facedown on the table to create a draw pile. Flip the top card of the draw pile face up to start a discard pile next to the draw pile The first player plays a card by placing it on top of the discard pile, the card must match the card below it in either rank or suit for example 7, queen, jack. If a player cannot match the card during their turn then they must draw from the draw pile until they can. Once the draw pile has been depleted, any player who cannot play a card must skip their turn. the number 8 card of any suit is a special card and can be played on top of any other card when a player plays an 8 they pick which suit is now in play meaning that the next player must play that suit or an 8 to continue. The way to win is by discarding all of your cards before any other player.

8. War

The goal of war is to be the player holding all 52 cards. War is normally just a two-player game but can easily be house-ruled to make it more players. To begin divide the deck as evenly as possible between players face down. Each player should place their stack of cards face down in front of them. The play of war is simple, at the same time each player flips the top card of their stack over and the player with the higher card takes both the cards and places them at the bottom of their stack. If the cards are the same rank then it's wartime. Each player should turn one card face down and one card face up, the highest card takes all of the cards, in this case, 6 cards, if the cards are again the same rank do this again until someone wins the hand. The game ends when one person has all of the cards.

9. I Doubt It (recommended for ages 13+)

The objective of I Doubt It is to be the first player to get rid of all their cards. When a player places their last card on the table and if it is not doubted or if it is and that person was telling the truth then the player wins. To start deal all of the cards out to the players as evenly as possible. The player on the left of the dealer goes first and places between one to four cards face down. While placing the cards the player says that they are placing as many aces as cards that they are placing. For example, if the player places four cards they would say "four aces", however, this does not have to be the truth. After the player has placed their cards down any player at the table can say "I doubt it". If this happens then the cards should be turned face up, if the player who placed the cards was telling the truth then the doubter must pick up not only the cards that were doubted but also any other cards that have been played in previous turns. If the player who placed the cards was lying then they must take all cards on the table including the ones that they just placed. When nobody says "I doubt it" the cards remain face down in front of the player who placed them until someone has to pick them up. After the first player has been doubted or not, the person on the left of them must put down one to four cards and say that they are placing down that many twos. After this the player to the left must put down and say so many threes, and so on after a player has announced kings, start over with aces.

10. Memory

Memory is really easy to play and is a great way to keep the kids thinking. To start shuffle all of the cards and then place them in rows of 13. Take it, in turn, to turn over any 2 cards, if they are the same then keep them otherwise turn them back over. Try to remember where all of the cards are when they are turned over. The game ends when all of the cards have been matched and the winner is the person with the most matches.
I hope that you have all been staying safe and hope to see you all in the store when we can.
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