Card Games

for a standard deck of 52 french-suited playing cards

Have you ever tried getting adults to play cards with you? I mostly play these with the kids at work. I currently know 20 games (that I like):

THE CANON:

(Blue denotes my personal favorites.)

• Slap (Egyptian Rat Screw / European)
  • I've heard a few variants of the name but let's be honest if I say we're playing "slap" you know exactly what I mean.
  • We slap doubles and sandwiches.
  • Not sure where I learned it. It's always been with me...
  • Rules
• Slime
  • Everyone else seems to know "Scum," but the way my dad taught me, it's called "Slime" and there's a slight rules difference that I like more (Instead of going around until someone passes, each player only gets one chance to play per trick, then the winner leads the next trick).
  • This is basically The Great Dalmuti, by the way.
  • Learned from my dad. ::sunglasses::
• Hearts
  • Cool trick-taker where you're trying not to win certain tricks.
  • Learned from Cam K.
• Cassino
  • I like how this game has a pile of disordered primordial soup in the center, and you find matches and patterns to claim cards.
  • Learned online.
• Shithead / Idiot / Toast
  • One of the best fast, engaging games for a few players.
  • Specials I play with:
    • 2: Play on anything
    • 7: Next player must play lower instead of higher
    • 10: Play on anything, burns pile
  • Triples also burn the pile.
  • Learned from a past partner.
• Old Ace (Old Maid)
  • My main deck is missing a card anyway (the A♥) so it's perfect for Old Maid; the last card is just A instead of Q and we call it "Old Ace."
  • Learned online.
• Go Fish
  • Apparently some people play where you have to get all four of a rank to put it down??
• Rummy
  • Learned this and played to 100 points with my friend April. It reduced us to nothing. Gin rummy sounds a bit more palatable, I'll probably try that at some point.
  • Learned online.
• Poker
  • The classic. I've only played Texas Hold 'Em. It's OK, but I've never played it for real money, so it's never carried the weight it's supposed to. Maybe I'll convince people to gamble sometime.
• Blackjack / 21
  • The other classic. Best game with super snappy rounds, like play a round in 10 seconds when Omair asks.
  • Although I realized Blackjack is a bit different, what I play is probably "21."
• BS
  • Playing with 6 children so far seems to be a bit of a slog.
• Kings' Corners
  • A good 1v1 game sort of tricks the players into "working together" on something. This is my favorite example so far. The kids at work like this one.
  • Learned from two randoms at a bar, then I checked the rules online later.
• Garbage
  • This is the most popular one at work. It's all luck, so adults might scoff, but it's really satisfying to chain cards across your board.
  • Learned from Jeysen.
• Durak
  • Apparently the most popular card game in Russia. The name means "fool," for the last person with cards. I discovered it recently looking for good 1v1 games, but also remembered that I used to have a random Chrome extension that I played it on in like high school.
  • Learned online.
• Crazy Eights
  • This is basically Uno, by the way.
  • I actually like it better than Uno so far, because it's harder to change suit (color) and there's fewer action cards (Qs are skips, rare enough that they're novel).
  • Learned online.
• Golf
  • One of those few-cards-that-each-matter-a-lot games. I like the scrappy risk analysis.
  • Learned from my good friend John C.
• Speed
  • It's in the name.
  • Probably learned from some family member.
• 31 / Scat
  • Similar to Blackjack. Ancestral to it, apparently. I think it's a bit more interesting (also I'm a sucker for any game where you get to knock on the table dramatically).
  • Learned online.
• Spit
  • Speed-type game where you're trying to get rid of your pile by playing cards onto higher/lower ones.
  • For now we have 4 cards face-up in your "hand" and if you run out of cards to spit, we just shuffle one of the center piles and use that. I'll look it up later and see if there's a better way.
  • Learned from Atty C. (and he from his grandma!)
• 3-13
  • Rummy-type game where you play 10 rounds, with a different wild rank each time. Played with 2 decks shuffled together.
  • Learned from Erin.
• Cribbage
  • This is an English pub classic, with a funny wooden scoreboard with pegs. I found one at DI along with a deck of cards labelled "Cribbage," so I was like, ok I guess I have to learn this one now.
  • You take turns playing cards and scoring for certain things as you go. The dealer of each round gets an extra hand called the "crib." First to get all the way around the scoreboard (121 pts) wins.
  • I've only played it 3 times at the time of writing (6-26-26) but I really like it so far. The scoreboard makes scoring tactile and easy, and displays scores intuitively. There's just enough scoring rules that can't keep it all in your head at once you get pleasantly surprised by a point here and there.
• Cuckoo
  • Needed more games to play with the kids at work, found this one.
  • Super simple. Everyone gets a card, on their turn they can keep or swap with the next person, after one round the person stuck with the lowest card loses a life.

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The outcasts:

• War
  • Great game for younger kids. Serves a similar role to Slap. Just a bit too simple for me to include in my canon.
• Slapjack
  • Like super-simple Slap. This would probably be better for the boys who argue over slap though....
• Cambio
  • Similar to Golf, taught to me once by Cam K. Not included unless I play a bit more and decide that Golf isn't essentially better.
• Mao
  • Designed to be inaccessible and annoying for newcomers. The opposite of my philosophy. I also dislike games where you can't speak (or can't speak freely). That said, it seems rewarding in the long-term if you have a consistent group to play with, and want to amass a funny set of rules with friends.