Card Games

Everyone knows that it's just no fun at all when you're stuck inside on a rainy day, in the middle of summer! Especially when you're on vacation and on a camping trip.

Those tents, trailers and RVs are only so big, and when EVERYONE has to pile in, well, there's too many people.

We have tried to think of things for you to do when this happens. Some recommendations that we have, for before you leave home, will include bringing along decks of cards, coloring books and pages, jigsaw puzzles, books, magazines, and other various things to keep you busy. With any luck, it's not going to rain the WHOLE time, right?

But, now it is, and you're stuck. So, here are some card games that we can think of, that don't require any special decks of cards:

Old Maid

• Take three queens out of a regular deck of playing cards and set them aside. The one remaining queen will be the Old Maid.
• The game is played with 3 to 5 people and all of the cards are dealt to the players (it doesn't matter if someone has more cards than someone else).
• To play, after the cards are dealt, each player looks at their hand and if they have any pairs (2 cards with the same number) they place them face up in front of them. If you have three of the same card, you have to wait to see if you get the 4th one.
• The person to the left of the dealer starts the game. The player to his left draws one card out of that persons hand and if the card makes a pair, it gets laid down. This continues with each player getting a turn at drawing a card from the other persons hand.
• The game is over when the only card left is the Old Maid. The person holding the Old Maid at the end of the game loses.

War

• This game requires two players and a complete deck of regular playing cards.
• The dealer deals all the cards into two piles, face down.
• The person who did not deal lays a card, face up, on the table. (You do NOT look at your cards, just pull them off the top of the stack that the dealer dealt you.) The other person does the same thing. The person with the highest card (aces are high, twos are low), win and takes the two cards and places them in another pile next to the pile he's already using. If you run out of cards from the one stack, you start using the other, still face down, still without looking at them. DO NOT shuffle them!
• If each of you turn over a card with the same value on it, that's WAR! Each player places two cards, face down, and each of you turn over a third card. Whoever has the highest card, wins ALL of the cards.
• Uh-oh, you did it again! You each turned over the same card again? That's okay, you just lay two more cards down, face down, and turn over a third card. The winner is the person with the highest card.
• The winner is the one that ends up with all of the cards at the end of the game. OR, if in a WAR situation, doesn't have enough cards to settle it.

Go Fish

• This game is played by two to five people, and requires one regular deck of playing cards.
• The dealer deals all of the cards to the players, plus one additional, this is the "fishing pool".
• If any player has all four of any one value (for example, 4 - 4's) then they lay them down. When all of the players have laid down all of the sets that they have, the game starts.
• The person to the left of the dealer starts. That person turns to the person on their left and asks them if they have a card (i.e., a 2), in order to ask for a card, you must be holding one of that same value. If the person has the card that you asked for, you get to ask again. If the person doesn't have the card that you asked for, then you are told to Go Fish!. To do that, you must draw a card from the Fishing Pool. If it is the card that you were asking for, you can continue your turn. If it isn't, then it is the next persons turn.
• The game continues until one player has no cards left in their hand.