Crazy Eights Strategy
Crazy Eights is mostly luck — but not entirely. The player who keeps their Eights for the right moment, sheds the right cards and pays attention to what the opponent cannot follow wins far more than half the games. Here is how.
1. Hold your Eights — but not forever
An Eight is the one card that is always playable, so it is your insurance against a long, hand-swelling draw. Playing it when you have an ordinary legal card is nearly always wrong: you spend your safety net and gain nothing you could not have had for free. Save it for the turn when nothing else fits. The exception is the end of the hand. An Eight caught in your hand costs 50 points — as much as a whole hand's worth of ordinary cards — so once your opponent is down to one or two cards, an unplayed Eight becomes a liability. At that point play it, name a suit they are unlikely to hold, and hope to force a draw.
2. Name the suit you hold most of
When you do play an Eight, the suit to name is almost always the one you have the most cards of. Every card of that suit is a card you can play on your next turn without relying on rank matches, and the more of a suit you hold, the fewer of it your opponent can hold. The only time to override this is near the end of a hand, when your opponent is close to going out: then name the suit they have most recently drawn on — the one they could not follow — even if you hold little of it yourself.
3. Shed high cards first
When you have a choice of legal plays, get rid of the cards that would cost you most if you were caught with them. Kings, Queens and Jacks are 10 each; a Ten is 10; a Nine is 9. Aces and low cards are almost free. Between two cards of equal value, play the one from your shorter suit if you want to keep a long suit to follow later, or from your longer suit if you want to hold the suit where it is — both are reasonable, but the general rule is to keep your options wide: a hand that holds all four suits is a hand that rarely has to draw.
4. Steer the suit away from your opponent
With two players the information is unusually clear. Every time your opponent draws, you learn the suit they could not follow; every card they play tells you a suit they held. Keep a rough tally. When you can change the suit by matching rank — a Six of clubs on a Six of hearts, say — change it to a suit they have drawn on and away from one they have just played. Rank matches are your quiet suit-changers; they cost nothing and can send your opponent straight to the stock. The Hard computer opponent does exactly this, and it is the main reason it is hard.
5. Draw on purpose (occasionally)
You are allowed to draw even with a legal card in hand, and once in a while it is right. If your only legal play is an Eight and the stock is deep, drawing a card or two in the hope of an ordinary match can save the Eight for later. Likewise if your only play would hand your opponent a suit you know they are long in, a draw may be cheaper than the play. But be honest about the cost: every card you draw is a card you must shed, and each one carries points against you if the hand ends badly. Draw deliberately, never out of habit.
6. Count the stock and the discards
The discard pile is face up as it is built, so you can see which suits have been played out. If most of the spades are already on the pile, a named suit of spades will send your opponent drawing for a long time. When the stock is thin, remember that the discards (except the top card) are about to be reshuffled — the cards you saw go by are coming back. A very low stock is also when a blocked hand becomes possible: if you are holding fewer points than your opponent, a block is a small win; if you are holding an Eight, it is a disaster.
7. Close out the hand
When you are down to two cards, think about the order. Play the card that leaves you holding the one most likely to be playable next turn: an Eight (always playable), or a card in the suit currently to follow, or a card whose rank has not appeared in a while. If you hold an Eight and one other card, play the other card first if it is legal — you cannot be stopped from playing the Eight next turn, and going out on an Eight costs nothing. If you hold two ordinary cards in different suits, play the one from the suit your opponent seems to hold, so the suit switches to the one they lack.
8. Play the score, not just the hand
A game is to 100, and hands are worth very different amounts. When you are far ahead, play safe: shed Eights and court cards early, even at the cost of a slower hand, so that a loss costs little. When you are far behind, you need big hands — hold your Eight as a weapon rather than an insurance policy, aim to catch your opponent with points, and accept the risk. The hand-end panel on CardCouch shows exactly which cards cost what, which makes it easy to see where the points went.
Practice makes perfect
The Hard computer opponent saves its Eights, sheds high cards in its longest suit and switches the suit away from what you seem to hold when you are close to going out — a good sparring partner for these tactics.
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