Card Games For Dummies. Barry Rigal

War

      War is a great game for young children. The object is to acquire all the cards, which you can do in different ways.

To play War, you need the following:

       Two players

       A standard deck of 52 cards

      Start by dealing out the deck one card at a time, face-down, so that each player gets 26 cards. Keep your cards in a pile and don’t look at them. Each player turns over one card simultaneously; whoever turns over the highest card picks up the two cards and puts them face-down at the bottom of their pile.

      The cards have the normal rank from highest to lowest: ace, king, queen, jack, and then 10 through 2 (see Chapter 1 for card-playing basics).

      The game continues in this manner until both players turn over a card of the same rank, at which point you enter a war. A war can progress in one of three ways. I start with the most benevolent version and work my way to the most brutal:

       Each player puts a card face-down on top of the tied card and then one face-up. Whoever has the higher face-up card takes all six cards.

       Each player puts three face-down cards on the table and one face-up card, so the competition is for ten cards. This option speeds up the game, which often drags a little — especially for children!

       Each player puts down cards depending on the rank of the tied cards. If the equal cards are 7s, you each count off seven face-down cards before turning a card over. If the equal cards are kings, queens, or jacks, you turn down ten cards before flipping one up and squaring off. For an ace, count out 11 face-down cards.

       If another tie results, repeat the process until someone achieves a decisive victory.

      If a player runs out of cards in the middle of a war, you have two possible solutions: You lose the war and are out of the game, or you turn your last card face up, and these count as your played card in the war.

      Whoever wins the cards gathers them up and puts them at the bottom of their pile. The first person to get all the other player’s cards wins.

You can play War with three players. The dealer gives out 17 cards to each player, face-down. The remaining card goes to the winner of the first war. The players simultaneously flip over one card each. The highest card of the three takes all three cards. If two players tie for the high card, they each place three cards face-down and then place one face-up, and the highest card collects all the cards in the pile. If you have another draw at this point, you fight another war. If all three players turn over the same card, a double war takes place; each player turns down six cards and flips one up, and the winner takes all.

Fish and Friends

      The Fish family features two games: Go Fish and Authors. Both games have the same aim: Each player tries to make as many complete sets of four of a kind as possible.

      Go Fish

      Get out yer fishin’ pole and head to the waterin’ hole — you’re about to go fishin’ fer sets (four cards of the same kind).

      

To play Go Fish, you need the following:

       At least three players

       A standard deck of 52 cards

      Each player gets ten cards from the dealer. You pretend as you deal out the full deck that you have one more player than you really do. With four players, for example, you deal out ten cards (one by one, face-down, in a clockwise rotation) in five piles. Add the two leftover cards to the pretend pile and leave those 12 cards as the stock in the middle of the table. With three players, you have three hands of 13 cards and a stock of the remaining 13.

      Starting with the player to the left of the dealer, each player has the opportunity of asking any other player at the table a question. This must be in the form of “Do you have any Xs?” (X is the rank of card; 4s or queens, for example.) The player asking the question must have at least one X to pose the question.

      If the person asked has an X or two, they must hand them over, and the questioner’s turn continues. The questioner can then ask the same player or any other player if they have a card in a particular set. As soon as the questioner completes a set of four cards, they put the set down on the table in front of them and continue their turn.

The game becomes more difficult if the responder only has to provide one card from the relevant set, even if they have more than one queen, for example. The questioner has to ask again and risks wasting a turn.

      If the person asked has no cards of the rank specified in the question, they reply “Go Fish,” and the questioner takes a card from the stock. The questioner’s go ends, whether they pick up the card they were looking for or not. If the card that they draw from the stock completes a set, they must wait until their next turn to put the set down on the table. The turn passes to the player who sends their rival fishing.

      

Some play that if the card you draw from the stock completes any set in your hand, or if you pick up the card you were unsuccessfully asking for, your turn continues.

      At the end of the game — which almost always occurs when all the cards are in everybody’s hands and the stock has been used up — you count the sets. The player who collects the most sets wins. However, if one player puts all their cards into sets before the stock gets used up, they win.

      Authors

      Authors resembles Go Fish in many ways, with a few interesting exceptions that make it a far more subtle game.

      

At one time, people played Authors with special decks of cards bearing the pictures of famous authors. These decks are coming back into fashion; try www.unclesgames.com.

      The big difference between Authors and Go Fish is that the questions you ask other players must relate to specific cards rather than to a type of card. For example, you ask, “Do you have the ♠7?” instead of asking for 7s in general.

      The other rules on asking questions are also quite specific:

       You can’t ask for a card if you already have that card in your hand.

       You can’t ask for a card unless you have at least one card of that set in your hand.

      

If you have two cards of a set in your hand, hearing someone else ask for a third card in the set may pinpoint who has the cards you need. If player A successfully asks player B for the ♦Q, for example, they now have two queens, so you can collect them from that player at your next turn if you get the chance.

An unsuccessful question means that the turn passes to the left rather than to the player who unsuccessfully asked for a card. Just as in Go Fish, when you complete a set, you place