Offline Mode: Four Best Card Games To Play

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It’s National Card Playing Day, so we’re going back to basics, turning off screens and picking up cards. Take a look at some of our favourite card games and get playing!

IRISH SNAP

Objective: lose all your cards!

Players: two or more

How to play: sit everyone around a table and deal all cards, one at a time, face down, in clockwise direction. Players must not look at their cards. Once they are all dealt, the player to the left of the dealer turns over their top cards and puts it in the middle of the table, face up, saying “one”. The player to their left does the same, placing their card on top, saying “two”. Play continues in this way (counting the numbers and face cards) until one - or more - of the following occurs:

● The card just laid matches the card underneath (like normal snap)

● The card just laid matches the card number spoken by the player (e.g. they put down a two whilst saying two)

When this happens, all the players must slam their hands on top of the pile of cards. The last player to do so takes the entire pile and puts them on the bottom of the pile in their hand. This player then starts the next round, resuming from “One”. If any player slams, or lurches, they forfeit the round and pick up all the cards in the centre. 

The game continues until one person has all the cards and they are therefore, the loser.

RUMMY

Objective: try to form matched sets of cards - either three or four of a kind, or sequences of three or more cards of the same suit.

Players: two or more

How to play: depending on how many people are playing, the dealer gives out cards one at a time, face down. For two players, each player gets 10 cards; for three or four players, seven cards; five or six players, six cards. The remaining cards are placed face down on the table in a stockpile. To start the game, the dealer turns over the top card on the stock pile and puts it face up next to the stack. Then, the player to the left of the dealer either takes the card turned up, or takes one from the stockpile and adds to their hand, and replaces one of their own to the face up pile. If the player has any sets, they can lay them down, face up, on the table. 

As the play continues, players may also add more cards from their hand to any matched set they have already laid down. So, if they have laid down three threes, and pick up a fourth one, they can add it. Or, if they have a 10, 9, and 8 laid down, they could add a jack or a 7 etc. 

The winner is the first person to get rid of their cards. 

CLOCK SOLITAIRE

Objective: get all sets of cards before the fourth king is revealed

Players: one

How to play: shuffle the deck and then place the cards, face down, in the position of a clock (so one card at every hour) and then one in the centre of the clock. Repeat this until there are four cards in each pile and you’ve used up the pack. Once done, turn the top card over from the middle pile, and place it next to the hour it represents - an ace is one, and for face cards jack is eleven and queen is twelve. If you reveal a king, this sits in the middle pile. When you’ve placed this card down, pick up a card from the pile and continue on playing. If you complete the clock before getting all four kings, you win!

SLAM

Objective: get rid of your cards and slam the slam pile!

Players: two

How to play: sit opposite each other, split the deck equally and then start to place the cards in front of you, in five spaces - the first, face up, and the next four face down. Do this again, starting with the second card along, placing one on top face up, and the next three face down. Continue this until the final card has one face up card with four face down cards beneath it. 

Keep the rest of your cards in a pile, face down. After a count of three, each player must turn over their top card and place it face up in the middle of the table between each other's cards. 

The game is now on, and the idea is to get the cards from your fives piles into the two in the middle. You can place a card (no matter the suit) on top of the pile if it ranks one higher or one lower than the current card - so if there’s a six, you can put a five or a seven on top, if it’s a king you can do queen or ace, etc. Once you’ve put a card from a pile into the middle, you can turn over the face down card it was covering. 

If at any time your face up cards are the same number, you can place them on top of each other - essentially freeing up another face down card to be turned over - but you can only put them in the middle one at a time. When you use all of the cards in a pile, you can place a card from a different pile in its space to reveal the card below it. 

If you get to a point where none of the cards in either of your five piles are able to be put in the middle, count to three and, at the same time, turn over another card from your extra pile. Then continue to play. You can do this multiple times, but only if both players cannot use any of their cards. 

As soon as someone has used all the cards in their five piles, they must shout “SLAM” and race to slam their hand on the smaller of the two middle piles. It is a race however, because as soon as “SLAM” is shouted, it’s open for both players to slam their hand down. 

You must then take the cards you got - either the bigger or smaller pile - and remake your five piles as much as you can, add to your extra pile, and a new middle pile, if possible. As the aim of the game is to get rid of all your cards, it doesn’t matter if you can’t finish all your piles. 

If there are only enough cards to have one middle pile, then the aim of this round is to slam the empty space. 

The winner is the person to get rid of all five piles, their extra pile and then slams the empty space!