Card Games

Stud Poker: Five-Card Stud and Seven-Card Stud Stud Poker can be played with seven to nine people, but is best played with two or four. A standard 52-card deck is used. In Five-Card Stud the dealer can be chosen in the same way you choose a dea...

Draw Poker Draw Poker makes the game of Poker much more interesting because you are not stuck with one hand. Near the beginning of the game, you are entitled to take cards out of your initial hand and exchange them with cards from the deck. Dra...

Straight Poker Straight Poker is played with a standard 52-card deck with anywhere from 2 to 14 players; the ideal number of players is 7 or 8. Aces are high and there are no high or low ranking suits. Jokers are often used as wild cards. The o...

What Is Poker? No one really knows how Poker came to be. Most people have concluded that it is made up of a variety of earlier games. In its earliest recorded history, Jonathan H. Green (believed to have first attached the word “Poker” to th...

Let's Play Bridge It is traditional for players to sit across from each other at the bridge table—with partners sitting directly across from one another. The players' positions at the table are referred to as “North,” “South,” “East,...

Gin Rummy Gin Rummy is credited to a member of the Knickerbocker Whist Club of New York. He apparently called the game “Gin” after the alcoholic drink, as a kind of analogy to the original game of Rum—although there is no indication that �...

History of Blackjack It's believed that the game of blackjack has its roots in France. It was originally known as 21. The goal of the game is to beat the dealer's hand by scoring 21 or as close to 21 as you can get without going over. If the dea...

How to Play Spit When I was about 12 years old, I spent an entire summer in the country playing Spit with my best friend. I'm not exaggerating. Every day for two and a half months my friend and I played Spit while watching TV on rainy days or ha...

Double Solitaire Double Solitaire is the exception to the solo-game rule that we've come to learn. I had to include it, though, because it is how I learned to play Solitaire (not to mention the antics of my Solitaire-crazed parents). The object...

How to Play War | FamilyEducation War was a great way for my grandmother to distract us from our own daily battles with each other. It was also a great way to help us learn the art of cooperation through game-playing. We played this game tireles...

How to Play Rook Rook has been in the United States for at least a century. A specially designed 57-card deck was officially introduced by Parker Brothers in 1906. There are four suits in this deck: red, green, black, and yellow, and the numbers...

Crazy Eights Crazy Eights was perhaps the most popular card game in my family. It was easy and all the kids could play. It is played by two or more players; the object is to exhaust your hand by placing your cards in a discard pile according to ...

Spades Game Spades is usually played with four people. It is possible to play with fewer, but the preferred number of people is four (not necessarily in teams). Winning Plays Did you know that Spades is an American game? It seems to have origina...

Clock SolitaireMaterials Pack of cards (without the Joker) Directions Shuffle the cards and then deal out twelve cards face down in a circle like a clock. Place one card in the center. Deal another twelve cards on top of the first ones and place ...