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 more than their share of 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 while an ordinary card would do the same job is usually a mistake: you spend your safety net and gain nothing you could not have had for free. Save it for the turn when nothing else fits, or for the moment the current suit is about to leave you drawing and an Eight can switch play to a suit you hold several of. The other exception is the end of the hand. An Eight caught in your hand costs 50 points — often more than the rest of a hand put together — 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 seem short of, 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 usually 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. This matters most when your opponent is close to going out — that is when a court card in hand is about to be counted against you. Between two cards of similar value, prefer the one from your longest suit: it leaves the suit to follow where you are strong, so you can keep following it while your opponent, who holds fewer of it, is the one who has to draw. The Medium and Hard computer opponents play exactly this way. Keep some spread too — a hand with a card in every suit 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 keeps the same tally of the suits you have drawn on and played.
5. Know the draw rule — you cannot draw on purpose here
On CardCouch you may only draw when nothing in your hand fits, you draw one card at a time until a card fits, and that card must be played. There is no drawing to save an Eight and no drawing to dodge a play, so a turn where your only legal card is an Eight is a turn where the Eight goes. Plan for that: an Eight is best kept alongside ordinary cards of the suit to follow, not as your only match. The rule cuts both ways — your opponent cannot stall either, so every draw you force on them is a card they must eventually shed, and a long run of one suit they are short of swells their hand turn after turn. In home games that allow a voluntary draw (many rule sets do), the same logic applies in reverse: a draw can save an Eight or avoid feeding a suit the opponent is long in, at the price of a bigger hand.
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 and the stock is still deep, naming spades is likely to send your opponent to the stock for several cards. 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: the lower total scores the difference, so if you are holding fewer points than your opponent a block is a small win, and if you are holding an Eight it is an expensive one.
7. Close out the hand
When you are down to two cards, think about the order. If you hold an Eight and one other card, play the other card first if it is legal — nothing your opponent does can stop you playing the Eight next turn, and going out on an Eight costs nothing. Two ordinary cards of the same suit are the next best finish: after you play one, your opponent usually has to follow that suit, and then your last card follows it too. Two ordinary cards in different suits are the awkward case — your last card is only playable if the suit comes back round to it (or the rank matches). Then play into the suit your opponent has been drawing on: they must draw until they find a match, every card they draw counts for you if you do go out, and the extra cards keep them from going out first. Where the hand is heading matters earlier than the last two cards, so try to steer towards a same-suit or Eight-plus-one finish while you still have choices.
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 to keep the loss small if this hand goes wrong: shed court cards when you have the choice and do not sit on an Eight to the very end, even if that means a slower hand. When you are far behind, a small win does not help — you need your opponent caught with cards. Force draws with the suits they are short of and time your Eight to leave them stuck when they are down to a card or two. 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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