Games to Play with a Deck of Cards

I have very fond memories of playing cards when I was a kid. Someone always had a deck of cards up at the pool, so that we could play Hearts while it was adult swim for 15 minutes at the top of the hour. Someone always had a deck of cards at the Community House, so that we could play Poker during boring parts of the play rehearsals (in fact, I remember when Frankie missed his cue during a production of Tom Sawyer because he was backstage deep in a hand of Poker). My parents and grandparents played Bridge every night when we were there for Christmas, and it was a big deal when the children were considered old enough to be initiated into the club and taught to play Bridge. I remember sitting on a trunk in the Amtrak station in Chicago playing Bridge while we waited for our train. My brother and I played War for hours. I played a million games of Solitaire by myself.

I still have my favorite most-played deck from childhood (bear in mind that I was at a very "I heart butterflies" age!)

I also have the double deck that I begged my mom to get me from the Metropolitan Museum of Art catalogue. At that point I had moved on to the "I heart Tiffany stained glass age"!

And I don't remember where this deck came from but I've had it since I was a little girl. It is soooo cool that I protected it fiercely and hardly ever played a game with it. It comes in a cool storage case, and the letters for the face cards are different because it's French! It also has "1" cards instead of Aces!

Fast-forward to a few weeks ago when I taught my after school Magic Class the Kid's Spelling Trick. Then I told Zac that he could keep the deck for his very own. It's an adorable set of Dog playing cards, with a different puppy on each card. (The Saluki is on the queen of hearts.) I thought he'd be thrilled! Instead he was baffled. He asked me why some of the cards had letters on them. What is A, K, Q, J?

It was then that I realized that my son is almost 10 and he had NEVER SEEN a deck of playing cards.

He explained to me later that he thought every card game had a specific deck of cards that went with it. Think Clumsy Thief, Check the Oven, Blink, Plop Trumps, Find My Behind, Rack-O, Rhyme Out, Ravine, None of a Kind, etc.

He never knew that there could be one deck of cards that you could play many games with!!!

So I promised Zac that I would spend some time over Spring Break teaching him card games, and now I'm looking up and making sure I know the rules for a few that are rusty. Since it has been many many years since I played with a deck of cards! If anyone has suggestions, I'd love to add to this list!!

game rules courtesy of bicyclecards.com

Games for One Player

Solitaire

Games for Two Players

Cribbage *

War

* requires additional equipment

Games for Four Players

Bridge

Group Games

Go Fish (2 or more)

Old Maid (2 or more)

Hearts (3 or more)

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