Note: none of these games use jokers, so before you start, make sure to find both jokers and remove them from the deck.
Solitaire is a very fun game played by one to two players. You start by shuffling a deck of cards and laying them out into seven piles. The first pile has one card, the second pile has two cards, the third pile has three cards, etc., going from left to right. The top card in each pile is face up. All of the other cards are face down. The rest of your cards go in a pile beside the game.
You play by flipping over the first card in your deck and attempting to play it. Moves are:
If the card you flip over cannot be placed somewhere, then you place it in a discard pile face up. If the first card in the discard pile can be used, you can use it, but you cannot pull cards out of the discard pile that are buried. When you run out of cards in your original stack, you may flip over the discard pile and go through it again and go through it again in the same fashion once. If you have not won by that point, you lose.
Casino is a very fun game involving 2-3 players. Start by picking a dealer. The dealer deals 4 cards to each player and 4 cards in the middle. The players hide their hands from the other players (although, if it is your first time playing, you might want to play an open-handed game in which everyone shows their hand so they can help each other.) The person to the left of the dealer goes first, and play continues around the circle in that direction.You are only allowed to play 1 card to make 1 move during your turn. The goal is to capture cards. Moves are:
When you're making a move, you should say what move you are making. For laying out, you say, "laying out a," and then whatever card you're laying out. For building, you say "building," and then the value of the two cards combined. For adding, you say "adding a," and then whatever card you are adding. For capturing, you say "taking," and then the value of the card you are capturing with.
The round is over when everyone has used up their hand. When the round is over, the dealer deals everyone a new hand, but does not put anything in the middle. The dealer only puts cards in the middle in the first round. Play resumes with the person to the left of the dealer. When the dealer has used up all the cards in their stack, they say "last," to let everyone know that is the last round.
When the game is over, everyone scores their stack of captured cards to know how many points they have. Scoring is:
To confirm that all of the points were found (sometimes important cards can hide in a deck and not be seen, so I recommend doing this), you can add up everyone's points. There are 11 total points available in any game, so if the points equal 11, you have found all the points. If the points are less than 11, you are missing some points, and if the points are greater than 11, someone saw a point that wasn't there. Keep in mind that there will often be cards left in the middle after the end of the game, and important cards are sometimes in that selection. If multiple people tie on having the most cards or the most spades, no one gets that point, so if that's the case, you should put that in the checking equation too.
To start a new game, shuffle the deck, pick a new dealer, and follow the instructions above.
* Jacks, queens, and kings.
**Although, if you plan to add more to the stack later, then the "stops" (numbers that you hit along the way) do not have to be numbers you have in your hand.
***You can add to a stack that someone else started.
Rummy is a very fun game with many different variants, but we'll focus on one called Gin Rummy. Within Gin Rummy, there are still different rule sets in which people play with, which can get quite confusing at times, but we'll start with the basics.
You play with 2 to 4 players. To start, pick a dealer and have them deal out 10 cards* to each player. These cards, your hand, should stay hidden from the other players at all times (although if you're still learning, it's okay to play an open-handed game in which everyone shows their hands so people can help each other). The remaining cards are put in the center, and the top one is flipped over face up. The face down cards are the draw pile, and the face up cards are the discard pile.
Play starts to the left of the dealer by one person picking a card, either from the draw pile or the discard pile.** This card they then add to their hand. The goal of the game is to make melds, of which there are two types.
You may make as many melds as you want during a turn. You are also allowed to add cards to your meld on a later turn, or to other peoples' melds on any turn, if you have a card that fits in with another players' meld.****
At the end of your turn, you must discard one card from your hand and add it to the discard pile face up. The first person to have no cards left in their hand, either if they use their last card in a meld or an add-on, or if they discard their last card, wins the game. In a two-person game, play stops there. In a three or four- person game, play continues until all but one person has emptied their hand, with awards for second and third place.
To play another game, gather up all the cards, get them all face down, reshuffle them, pick a new dealer, and follow the instructions above.
*One variation includes dealing only 5 cards to each player, which means that you can include up to 8 players in the game. The game still stops after third place is awarded.
**Some variations allow you to pick up multiple cards in the discard pile if you can use a card that is buried in the discard pile, but the new cards are added to your hand.
***Another variation of the game allows "around the horn" string melds, in which ace-king-queen of clubs would be a valid meld.
****For card melds, this would be another example of that card in the remaining suit, assuming it's a 3-card meld. If it has all 4, adding to a card meld would be impossible. For a string meld, you can add onto either end of the meld. For example, if I have 10-9-8-7 as a string meld, I could add a 6 or a jack, assuming they are the correct suit. A meld is still valid if cards that are added bring the number above 5. The 5 and under rule only applies when the person is first making the meld. The around-the-horn*** exception can also apply here.
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