How to Play Crazy Eights with a Deck of Cards

Crazy Eights is the card game behind every shedding game you have ever played: match the card on top, use your wild cards well, and empty your hand first. All you need is an ordinary deck.

Setup

• 2 to 7 players. One standard 52-card deck; add a second for more than five.
• Deal: with 2 players, 7 cards each. With 3 or more, 5 cards each.
• Put the rest face down as the stock. Turn the top card face up to start the discard pile. (If it is an 8, bury it in the stock and turn another.)

Playing

Starting left of the dealer, each player in turn plays one card face up onto the discard pile. It must match the top card by:

• Suit — any heart on a heart, or
• Rank — any 6 on a 6.

Eights are wild

An 8 can be played on anything. When you play it, name a suit; the next player must follow that suit (or play another 8).

If you cannot play

Draw from the stock until you get a card you can play, then play it. Some rules cap the drawing at three cards, after which you pass. When the stock runs out, players who cannot play simply pass.

Going out

The first player to get rid of all their cards wins the hand.

Scoring

The winner scores the cards left in everyone else's hands:

• Each 8: 50 points
• K, Q, J: 10 points
• Ace: 1 point
• Other cards: face value

Play to an agreed total — 100 points with two players, 200 or more with a full table.

Popular house rules

Plenty of families add action cards. None are standard, so agree before you start:

• 2: the next player draws two (and can stack another 2).
• Queen of Spades: the next player draws five.
• Jack: skip the next player.
• Ace: reverse the direction of play.
• Last card: you must say so when you have one card left, or draw two.

Tips

• Hold your 8s for when you are stuck. They are your way out.
• Change suit to one you are holding lots of — and one the next player seems short of.
• Get rid of high cards early; if someone goes out, they cost you more.

Shedding games are hard on cards — they get slapped down, swept up and played outdoors. A plastic deck can be wiped clean when someone spills on it.