Classic card games

Draw toward 21 without busting while the dealer follows fixed rules; the familiar casino banking game.

Play cards face down claiming a rank; anyone can call your bluff, and the loser picks up the pile.

Also called I Doubt It or BS.

Match the top card by suit or rank, play an eight to change the suit, and race to empty your hand.

Draw and discard to form sets and runs while keeping unmatched card values low.

Ask other players for a rank you hold and collect books of four; the classic first card game for kids.

The solitaire most people simply call “Solitaire”: build down in alternating colors and up by suit to the foundations.

Make pairs and draw from neighbors while trying not to finish with the unmatched card.

A climbing game with a social ladder: the winner becomes president and the loser trades away their best cards.

Has many names and house rules.

Draw and discard to arrange your cards into valid sets and runs.

Two players race simultaneously to play cards one higher or lower onto two center piles.

Reveal cards simultaneously; the higher rank wins the capture in a game driven by chance.

Partners collect melds, especially seven-card canastas, across a long-form rummy game.

Peg points on a board for fifteens, pairs, and runs, with a spare “crib” hand belonging to the dealer.

Needs a cribbage board or another way to keep score.

Two partnerships choose trump and compete over five quick tricks.

Avoid penalty cards in tricks—or take the risky path of capturing every one.

Combine betting decisions with ranked card hands across many distinct variants.

Player count and duration depend heavily on the poker variant and stakes format.

Partners bid their expected tricks, with spades permanently serving as trump.

The classic English partnership trick game and ancestor of Bridge: follow suit and win tricks for your side.

Partners bid a contract, then use careful trick play to make or defeat it.

An American melding and trick game with a doubled pack: score meld first, then win counters in tricks.

Needs a 48-card pinochle deck.

A Nigerian trick game for a short 35-card pack where only the last trick decides the hand.

Uses a reduced pack; regional rules vary.

The old English ancestor of Pitch: score for high, low, jack, and game while following trump-led tricks.

France’s favorite trick game: bid a trump, score the jack and nine highly, and declare runs and the trump king-queen pair.

Played with a 32-card pack.

A partnership trick game with jokers where the winning bid also chooses uptown, downtown, or no-trump.

A Cajun gambling trick game: stay in and you must take at least one trick, or match the whole pot.

An Italian point-trick game with no need to follow suit, so reading your partner and the trump card matters most.

Usually played with a 40-card Italian pack.

A Nepalese trick game related to Spades: call how many tricks you will take with spades as permanent trump.

Pagat covers it alongside Call Bridge, its close Indian relative.

A quick French two-player trick game with an exchange of cards and a premium on holding the trump king.

Uses a 32-card pack.

A two-player whist where the first half wins better cards and the second half plays out the hand you built.

Iran’s classic partnership trick game, where a ruler chooses trump after seeing five cards.

Switzerland’s national card family: point-trick games where the trump jack and nine are worth the most.

Traditionally played with a 36-card Swiss or French pack.

A Canadian prairie trick game with bidding, a 32-card pack, and special cards worth plus or minus five.

A two-player Jass-family game where the trump jack and nine dominate and sequences add bonus points.

Also known as Clobyosh or Bela.

A historic gambling trick game: take at least one trick or pay into the pot, which can grow dramatically.

Bid for a contract, call a secret partner, and capture point cards in a Korean trick-taker.

The common five-player game uses a standard deck plus one joker.

A simple bidding game: bid how many of five tricks you can take, up to the daring “Nap” for all five.

Also called Napoleon.

A three-player trick game where you bid by discarding three cards that encode exactly how many tricks you will take.

Predict exactly how many tricks you will win, then navigate the hand to hit that bid.

An All Fours partnership game with bidding, where two fives—the pedros—are among the most valuable cards.

Close relative of Cinch; pagat covers both on one page.

A Midwestern Euchre relative with bidding on six tricks, popular in Iowa.

Bid for the right to name trump, then win points for high, low, jack, and game.

A French-Canadian partnership game descended from Tressette, played without trumps for point cards.

Uses a 32-card pack; also called La Politaine.

A trick-taking classic with its own 57-card deck, bidding for the right to name trump and take the widow.

A fast Austrian two-player game: reach 66 points through tricks and marriages, possibly closing the stock early.

Uses a 20-card pack.

A short avoidance game: don’t take the first trick, the last trick, or the queen of clubs.

A Portuguese partnership game played with 40 cards where aces and sevens carry most of the points.

An Italian trick game where the three is the highest card and you must follow suit with points in mind.

Uses a 40-card pack.

A South American bluffing trick game where players can raise the stakes mid-hand with a shouted challenge.

Uses a 40-card Spanish pack; regional rules vary.

An Australian student-invented trick game loosely based on Hearts, where the leader chooses trumps each hand.

A bluffing trick game from Nice, related to Truc, where tens and nines are the highest cards.

Uses a 32-card pack.

An Alpine trick game full of bluff, where the strongest cards change every deal and signals are allowed.

Traditionally played with German-suited cards.

An old point-trick game where the four jacks—the Yukons—are trumps and hands are refilled after every trick.

A compendium game of several contracts—avoid hearts, queens, or the king of hearts—chosen in turn by each dealer.

A German partnership trick game with a doubled pack where the queens of clubs secretly decide who plays together.

Uses two 24-card packs (9 to ace).

A 78-card trick game where one taker plays against the rest, aiming to win enough points with key trumps.

Needs a French tarot pack.

Austria’s favorite tarock game: the declarer calls a king to find a secret partner before play.

Needs a 54-card Tarock pack.

A 17th-century Spanish trick game where one player takes on the other two; the source of many later games.

Uses a 40-card pack. Pagat lists it as L’Hombre.

A classic two-player game with declarations for point, sequence, and set before tricks are played.

Uses a 32-card pack.

An 18th-century four-player version of Ombre, once the fashionable game of European salons.

Mostly of historical interest.

The Bavarian national game: queens and jacks are always trump, and the declarer calls an ace to find a partner.

Uses a 32-card pack.

The American cousin of Schafkopf, popular in Wisconsin, where the picker takes the blind and plays against the table.

Uses a 32-card pack.

Germany’s great three-player game: bid for the right to play alone, take the skat, and win at least 61 points.

Uses a 32-card pack.

A Chinese partnership point-trick game with changing trump ranks and tractors of consecutive pairs.

Also called Sheng Ji. Uses two decks.

Hungary’s national card game: three players bid through a passed-around talon for contracts such as winning the last trick with the trump seven.

Uses a 32-card pack.

A Russian bridge-like partnership game with auction bidding and scoring for honors and tricks.

An elaborate Swedish three-player trick game where a lone player draws from the stock and picks from many contracts.

“Looking for friends”: a big-group Chinese trick game with several decks, where the trump maker calls cards to form secret teams.

Needs several decks with jokers.

A Latvian three-player point-trick game related to Schafkopf, with queens, jacks, and diamonds as permanent trumps.

Uses a 26-card pack.

A simpler Austrian tarock for four, played with 40 cards; the declarer calls the trump XX to find a partner.

Needs a Tarock pack.

Draw and discard to collect a hand worth as close to 31 in one suit as possible, then knock.

Also called Scat or Blitz.

An old Mexican two-player rummy that may be the ancestor of the whole rummy family.

Rummy played over several deals, each with a required contract of sets and runs before you can go down.

A Canasta relative played with several decks: finish your hand, then your foot, while building books as a team.

Needs five or six decks.

A 13-card rummy where you need at least one pure run without jokers before you can declare.

Uses two decks with jokers.

A rummy game played with jokers and two decks, popular in Britain and the Caribbean, with escalating contracts.

Also spelled Kaluki.

A simple Chinese rummy-style game: collect a 16-card hand made of eight pairs; players can join between hands.

Played with a Chinese Dongguan pack.

A rummy where you can take deep into the discard pile, and melds score by card value toward 500.

An Israeli draw-and-discard game: reduce your hand total and call Yaniv—unless someone else is even lower.

A two-player melding classic using a doubled short pack; score for marriages, sequences, and the famous bezique pair.

Needs two 32-card packs.

A Kurdish bidding and melding game, almost identical to three-handed double-deck Pinochle.

Uses a doubled 24-card pack.

A Middle Eastern fishing game where you capture by matching or summing, with jacks and the seven of diamonds as specials.

A fishing game where you capture table cards by matching or building sums, with bonus points for cards and spades.

Also spelled Cassino.

Ecuador’s national card game: capture by matching or adding and race to forty points, with bonuses for sweeps.

Uses a 40-card pack.

Italy’s most famous fishing game: capture cards by matching or summing and score a scopa for sweeping the table.

Uses a 40-card Italian pack.

A Greek two-player fishing game: capture the whole pile by matching its top card, with a bonus for a single-card “xeri”.

A North German fishing game for partners, with high-value jokers and building by subtraction as well as addition.

Build descending, alternating-color piles around a cross layout, with kings opening the corners.

Also called Kings Corners.

Match the top discard by suit or rank and use special cards to disrupt other players.

Special-card effects vary by country and play group.

Combine betting-board payouts, poker comparisons, and a race to shed cards in sequence.

Also encountered under names such as Michigan Rummy; local versions differ.

Get rid of your hand and then your face-up and face-down table cards, playing equal or higher—with special twos and tens.

Also known by a ruder name; house rules vary.

Build each suit up and down from its seven; if you can’t play, you pass or pay into the pot.

Also called Fan Tan or Domino.

A Finnish bluffing game: play cards face down, announce what they are, and pick up the pile if you are caught lying.

The Russian version of Cheat—“trust, don’t trust”—where you shed cards face down and challenge suspicious claims.

A climbing game from East Asia: beat the last play with a higher single, pair, or five-card poker hand and empty your hand first.

China’s hugely popular three-player climbing game: one landlord plays against two peasants working together.

Uses both jokers.

Russia’s best-known card game: defend against attacks by beating each card, or take them all and fall behind.

Uses a 36-card pack.

Shed your cards while discovering the group’s hidden rules through penalties and play.

House rules are the point of the game, so versions differ substantially.

Play solitaire-style piles simultaneously while racing to empty your personal Nertz pile.

A Chinese climbing game where you fight for point cards—fives, tens, and kings—while shedding your hand.

The Chinese “struggling upstream” climbing game, probably best with five or six, where losers end up in the pit.

Known in Britain as Pits.

A one-player patience: deal cards in a line and collapse matching neighbors until, ideally, one pile remains.

Deal four piles, discard lower cards of a suit, and try to finish with only the four aces on the table.

An open patience: aces start in the middle and every card is visible, so success depends on planning moves.

A purely mechanical solitaire laid out like a clock face; it ends when the fourth king turns up.

A patience with four free cells and every card visible; nearly every deal can be won with careful play.

Lay out all 52 cards, remove the aces, and slide cards into the gaps to build each row in suit order.

Also called Montana.

Pair cards that add up to 13 to dismantle a pyramid of 28 cards; kings leave on their own.

A demanding two-deck patience where only single cards may move and the tableau quickly clogs up.

Needs two decks.

A competitive patience for two players racing to build foundations while dumping cards onto each other.

A two-deck patience where you build full king-to-ace runs in suit inside the tableau to clear them.

Needs two decks.

A competitive patience where you build from your payoff pile while blocking what your opponent needs.

Needs two decks.

A casino banking game: bet on the player or banker hand and let fixed drawing rules decide who lands closer to nine.

A historic banking game of the American frontier where players bet on which rank the dealer turns next.

The most popular poker variant: two private cards, five shared ones, and four betting rounds.

Partners draw, discard, signal, and wager across four comparisons in a Basque classic.

Usually played with a 40-card Spanish deck; regional scoring varies.

A pure-luck children’s game where court cards demand payment of one to four cards from the next player.

Each player holds one card and decides whether to swap it with the next player; the lowest card loses a life.

Also known as Ranter-Go-Round or Screw Your Neighbor.

Flip cards into a pile and slap doubles, sandwiches, and other patterns faster than everyone else.

Slap rules vary widely from table to table.

Replace face-down cards over several holes and aim for the lowest total score.

Each player bids secretly with one suit for prize cards revealed from another; a pure game of bluff and value.

Also known as GOPS; pagat files it under that name.

Turn over two cards at a time and remember their positions to collect matching pairs.

A real-time two-player race where each side plays from their own stockpiles onto shared spit piles.

A combat card game where number cards score points and other ranks act as one-off effects or permanent powers.

One player invents a secret rule for which cards can be played; everyone else experiments to deduce it.

Partners invent secret signals to tell each other when they hold four of a kind—without the other team noticing.

Match hanafuda cards by month and decide whether to bank a scoring hand or continue.

Ask other players for named cards and collect complete four-card families.

A Hungarian game for two or four: win tricks by matching the rank of the card led, with sevens acting as wild cards.

Uses a 32-card pack.