How to Play Crazy Eights

Overview & Objective

Crazy Eights is a shedding game: the aim is to be the first player to get rid of every card in your hand. You do that one card at a time, and each card you play has to match the card on top of the discard pile by suit or by rank. The Eights are the exception — they can be played on anything, and whoever plays one gets to name the suit that follows. When you cannot play you draw from the stock instead, and every card you draw is one more you will have to shed later.

The first player to empty their hand wins the hand and scores the value of the cards still held by the opponent. A game is played over several hands to 100 points. On CardCouch you play the classic two-player game head-to-head against the computer.

The Deal

• Players: 2 on CardCouch. With a physical deck the game works for two to about seven; larger groups shuffle two decks together.
• Deck: a standard 52-card deck, no jokers.
• Hands: seven cards each, face down. You may look at your own cards; your opponent's stay hidden.
• Stock and starter: the remaining cards form the face-down stock. Its top card is turned face up to start the discard pile. If that card is an Eight it is buried in the stock and another card is turned — the usual rule, since an Eight cannot name a suit by itself.
• First turn: the non-dealer plays first, and the deal alternates each hand. The computer deals the first hand, so you go first in hand 1.

Taking a Turn

On your turn you do one of the following:

1. Play a card that matches by suit. If the top card is the Seven of hearts and no suit has been named, any heart may be played.
2. Play a card that matches by rank. Any other Seven may be played on the Seven of hearts — and doing so changes the suit to that Seven's suit.
3. Play an Eight on any card, and name the suit that must follow (see below).
4. Draw from the stock, one card at a time, until you draw a card you can play — which you then play at once — or the stock runs out. You may only draw when nothing in your hand fits.

Only one card is played per turn. After a card is played the turn passes to the other player, who must now match the new top card. On CardCouch the cards you may legally play are the ones that light up in your hand; tap one to play it, or tap the stock to draw.

The Wild Eight

The Eights give the game its name. An Eight can be played on any card, whatever its suit or rank, and the player who plays it names a suit. The next player must then play a card of that suit, a card that matches the Eight's rank (that is, another Eight), or draw. The named suit stays in force until a card of that suit or another Eight is played; on the table a small badge next to the discard pile shows the suit currently to follow.

Two things make Eights precious. First, an Eight is the only card that is always playable, so it rescues you when you are stuck. Second, it is worth 50 points against you if you are caught holding it when your opponent goes out. Play it too early and you waste your safety net; hold it too long and it may cost you half a game. If your last card is an Eight, you simply go out — there is no suit to name.

Drawing and Passing

If you have no playable card, you draw from the stock. In the rule used on CardCouch you draw one card at a time, and you keep drawing until you draw a card you can play; that card must then be played. The stock is only live when nothing in your hand fits — there is no drawing while you hold a legal card — and each tap draws one card and tells you whether it fits.

The draw is the rule that varies most from house to house. Many rule sets let a player draw instead of playing even when they could play; others allow only a single draw, or cap it at three cards, before the turn passes. All of those are listed under house rules below; none of them apply here.

When the stock is used up, the discard pile — everything except its top card — is shuffled to form a new stock and play carries on. Passing is only allowed when there is genuinely nothing to draw and you hold no card that fits; a Pass button appears for exactly that situation. If both players pass one after the other, nobody can move: the hand is blocked and scored on the cards in hand.

Scoring a Hand

The moment a player plays their last card the hand ends. The winner scores the total value of the cards left in the loser's hand:

Example: you go out while the computer still holds 8♠ K♥ 3♦ and 9♣. You score 50 + 10 + 3 + 9 = 72. In a blocked hand, both hands are totalled and the player with the lower total scores the difference; an exact tie scores nothing.

The Game to 100

Hands are played, with the deal alternating, until a player's running total reaches 100 points. That player wins the game. A single hand can swing the score by a lot — one Eight caught in hand is half the distance — so a game is rarely over before it is over. CardCouch keeps the score sheet hand by hand in the sidebar and shows a summary of both hands, with the cost of every card, at the end of each hand.

Popular House Rules (not used here)

Crazy Eights has more house rules than almost any other card game, and many of them were later packaged into Uno, Mau-Mau and Switch. CardCouch plays the plain classic game; these are the variants you are most likely to meet elsewhere:

• Queens skip: playing a Queen skips the next player's turn (with two players, you play again).
• Twos draw two: playing a Two forces the next player to draw two cards — and in some houses the penalty stacks if they answer with another Two.
• Jacks reverse: in games of three or more, a Jack reverses the direction of play (Aces do this in some versions).
• “Last card”: you must announce when you are down to one card, or draw a penalty card if caught.
• Draw one only: you draw a single card and, if it does not fit, your turn ends. Other tables cap the draw at three cards.
• Voluntary draw: a player who does not wish to play may draw instead — common in published rules, and the usual way to hang on to an Eight.
• Three or more players: five cards each; usually two decks with six or more at the table. Some tables of four play in partnerships.
• Mau-Mau, Switch and Uno: the same match-or-draw game with a fixed set of action cards — Uno simply prints them on the cards.

Frequently Asked Questions

Keep learning