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Three Great Card Games To Play With The Family This Christmas

 

Christmas is traditionally best spent with those nearest and dearest, whether your family, your closest friends, or both! Getting together to play a game is always fun, but if the kids’ board games are a bit childish, and Monopoly always causes arguments, then sometimes all you need is a pack of playing cards to play some simple and fun games that everyone will enjoy.

 

Your group of friends or family members might already have a regular Poker night, but to help keep the peace, it might be best to avoid any games that involve gambling, especially if there are kids involved, but there are fun card games that everyone will enjoy, as well as help children with numeracy and simple maths.

 

We wanted to take a look at some simple but fun card games for your next family gathering and keep in mind that many card games go by different names, so some of these might already be familiar!

 

Crazy Eights Countdown

 

Crazy Eights Countdown is a great game for beginners, is easy to pick up, and is very similar to the popular Uno card game. There are different variations of this game, so feel free to adapt it as you wish!

 

The goal of the game is to get rid of all your cards and start by dealing out eight cards to each player. From the top of the remaining pack, turn the top card over and place it on the table for everyone to see.

 

The player to the left of the dealer goes first, and they must play a card that matches the card value, the suite, or an eight.

 

For instance, if the card from the pack was an Ace of Spades, then the player can play another Ace, any Spades card, or an Eight, which is a wild card. The next player takes their turn, again playing a card that matches the value, suite, or an eight.

 

If someone plays their Eight wild card, then they get to pick the next suit. For instance, if they play an Eight of Hearts, they can announce the next suite is Hearts, Spades, Diamonds, or Clubs. It doesn’t have to be the same suite as the wild card.

 

If a player doesn’t hold a card they can play, then they must draw a card from the remaining pack until they have something they can play.

 

Play continues until someone can get rid of all their cards!

 

Now onto the next round, which is where the ‘Countdown’ in the title comes into play. In the next round, Seven is the wild card, and each player only gets dealt seven cards. In the next round, Six is the wild card, and each player gets six cards, and so on!

 

Why not try adding new rules to spice things up once everyone has the hang of it? Maybe playing a Jack means the direction of play is reversed, playing a Two means the next player picks up two cards, or a Three means skipping the next player.

 

Go Fish

 

Another simple game that’s great for people of all ages, and only needs a standard pack of 52 cards

 

If there are two or three players, the dealer hands out seven cards each, for more players, deal five cards each. The remaining cards are placed face down in a pile - the ‘fish’ pond.

 

Players then take a moment to rearrange their cards into groups of the same value, for instance, grouping the threes together, or the queens, making sure the other players do not see.

 

The player to the left of the dealer starts the game, by asking another player for any cards that will help complete their hand. For instance, if the player has two queens, they will ask the other player for their queens.

 

If the other player has any queens, they must hand them over. The player asking continues to ask for cards until there are no available cards, and when the player being asked does not have any cards to hand over, tells the player asking to ‘go fish’, who then takes one card from the ‘fish pond’.

 

The other player then takes their turn to ask another for their cards.

 

When a player has collected all four cards of a set - for example, all four queens, all four fives, etc, puts them face down on the table. The winner is the first player to have no single cards left, only complete sets, or the player with the most complete sets.

 

I Doubt It

 

More commonly known by the sweary moniker, I Doubt It is a more child-friendly title for the popular game! The aim is to get rid of all your cards by placing them onto the discard pile. All the cards are played face down, which means that players can lie about the cards they are playing. However, if they are caught out in their lie, they have to pick up all the cards in the discard pile!

 

Deal out all the cards between the players, and decide who goes first, then continue to the player to their left. Each player takes a turn discarding one or more cards face down on the pile, and calling out the cards played.

 

The first player must discard Aces, the second player discards Twos, the next is Threes, and so on. With cards being placed face down, players do not need to be honest. For instance, if a player needs to discard Eights, they might want to discard some other cards.

 

However, any other player who suspects they are lying can call out ‘I doubt it!’ Or ‘bullshit!’, and the cards just discarded must be shown. If the accused player is exposed as lying, they must pick up the entire discard pile, but if the challenge was false, then the accuser picks up the pile.

 

Play then continues as before, and the first person to get rid of all their cards and survive any challenges from their final play is the winner!

 

Enjoy The Games

 

While all these games do have a ‘winner’, they’re all highly enjoyable to play, and will certainly entertain your family and friends, and nobody will end up out of pocket and no family arguments! If you don’t own a pack of cards or two, they’re always a handy item to have in the house for impromptu card game nights.

 

At Coral Island Casino, we like to remind our customers to enjoy the games they love rather than focus on winning. So remember, when the fun stops, stop!

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