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GAME ARTICLES

Here are some game articles written by the website owner, Paul Hoemke:

08/23/2010 How To Play Hearts, With Variations

07/20/2010 One-Die Games

06/22/2010 Old Maid Is a Simple Card Game

05/16/2010 Free Card Games

02/13/2010 Five Traditional Card Games

01/12/2010 Family Game Night Lite

10/21/2009 A Simple Card Game For Toddlers

07/08/2009 5 Articles About How to Create a New Game

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How To Play Hearts, With Variations

Through the years, the card game Hearts has been modified numerous times from its simple beginnings over a century ago to the present. Some people play Hearts thinking that the version they are playing is the one and only version. That is simply not true.

The following rules of Hearts will tell you how to play the game. There are four places within the rules where you must choose from four variations. At each place, pick the variation that you wish to use. Then play the game. In future games, you can choose different combinations of variations. In all, you can play 256 different variations of Hearts.

For these rules, Hearts is played by four players using a standard deck of 52 playing cards. The object of the game is to avoid taking Hearts and other harmful scoring cards.

To begin the game, write the players' names across the top of a sheet of paper which will be used to record the scores. Then choose a player to be the first dealer. Just pick someone. Or have each player cut the cards, and the player with the highest card is the first dealer.

The dealer shuffles the cards, and then deals them one at a time, face-down, clockwise around the table beginning with the player to her or his left. The deal continues until all of the cards have been dealt and each player has 13 cards. Each player looks at his or her cards.

Before play begins, cards may be passed between players. Either:

1. No cards are passed. or

2. A four-deal system of passing is used. On the first deal, each player passes three cards to the player to the left. On the second deal, each player passes three cards to the player to the right. On the third deal, each player passes three cards to the player across the table. And on the fourth deal, the players don't pass any cards. or

3. Use the same system as above, but pass four cards. Then each player passes one of the four cards back to the player who passed them. or

4. Each player passes three cards to the dealer who shuffles the cards and deals them back to the players.

Each hand is played as a series of "Tricks". A trick contains four cards, one from each player. For each trick, one player lays the first card, the lead card, face-up on the table. Then each of the other players in turn moving clockwise around the table lays a card face-up on the table. After the first card is played, the other cards must match the suit of the lead card if possible. Otherwise any card can be played. (One exception – a harmful scoring card cannot be played on the first trick unless the player has no other choice.)

One player plays the lead card of the first trick. Either:

1. The player to the left of the dealer plays her or his lowest card from a suit other than Hearts. or

2. The player with the Two of Clubs plays it as the lead card. or

3. The first player to the left of the dealer with a Two of Clubs, Two of Diamonds, or Two of Spades plays it. or

4. The player with the Two of Clubs shows it to the other players, and then plays any non-scoring card.

Each of the other players plays a card, following suit if possible. The highest card in the suit that was lead wins the trick. The player who played that card takes the four cards in the trick, and then plays the lead card for the next trick.

There is an early-game restriction on leading a Heart. Either:

1. A Heart can be lead after the first trick has been played. or

2. A Heart can be lead after a Heart has been played in a previous trick. or

3. A Heart can be lead after the third trick has been played. or

4. A Heart can be lead after each of the other three suits have been lead, or after two suits have each been lead twice.

When all of the tricks in a hand have been taken, each player examines his or her cards for scoring cards. Either:

1. The 13 Hearts each score 1 point. or

2. The Two through Ten of Hearts each score 1 point, and the Jack, Queen, King, and Ace of Hearts each score 5 points. or

3. The 13 Hearts each score 1 point, the Queen of Spades scores 13 points, and the Jack of Diamonds scores minus 10 points. or

4. The first two Hearts taken by each player score 0 points. All other Hearts each score 2 points, the Queen of Spades scores 13 points, and the Jack of Diamonds scores minus 10 points.

If a player takes all of the scoring cards in a hand, that player "Shoots the Moon". The player scores 0 points, and each of the other player scores 26 points.

Each player adds her or his points to any previous score on the score sheet.

If none of the players has scored 100 points, the cards are gathered together, and the player to the left of the dealer becomes the new dealer.

When a player scores 100 points, the player with the lowest score wins the game.

End of rules. I've always loved the game of Hearts.

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One-Die Games

You can play games using the simplest equipment, a single 6-sided die, a pencil, and a piece of paper.

The games use simple game mechanics. You roll the die a number of times. After each roll, you record the number rolled on the piece of paper. You write the first number at the top of the sheet, and write the number from each subsequent roll beneath the last recorded number forming a column of numbers.

Then you compare the numbers. Based on these comparisons, you score points.

There are a number of games you can play using different comparisons.

1. Compare each roll to the previous roll. If the numbers match, you score a point.

2. Compare each roll to the previous roll. If the numbers do not match, you score a point.

3. Compare each roll to all previous rolls. If the current number matches any previous number, you score a point.

4. Compare each roll to the previous roll. If the current number is within one of the previous number (the same number, one number higher, or one number lower), you score a point.

5. Before each roll after the first roll, guess if the number rolled will be higher or lower than the last recorded number. If you are right, you score a point. (If the number is the same, re-roll the die.)

6. Before each roll after the first roll, guess if the number rolled will be higher or lower than the last recorded number. If you make an unlikely guess (higher for 4 or 5, lower for 2 or 3) and you are right, you score 2 points. If you make a likely guess (lower for 4, 5, or 6, higher for 1, 2, or 3) and you are right, you score 1 point. (If the number is the same, re-roll the die.)

7. Compare each roll to the previous roll. If the numbers add up to 7, you score a point.

8. Each time you roll the die, cross-off pairs of numbers that add up to 7. (Use each number once only.) For each pair of numbers that you cross-off, you score a point.

9. At the beginning of the game, guess what number each consecutive pairs of numbers will add up to. When they do, you score a point.

10. After each roll, look for a series of three or more consecutive numbers, including the last number rolled, that forms a sequence. The numbers can be in any order. If the last three numbers were 2, 3, 1, you score 3 points. If the last five numbers were 1, 4, 5, 2, 3, you score 5 points.

Each game can be played as a solitaire game or as a group game for two to four players. For a solitaire game, roll the die ten times. Start a second column at the top of the sheet to record your scores. Add the points you score to your previous score until the game ends.

For games with more than one player, use a single column for recording all of the rolls, and separate columns for each player's scores. Roll the die, and record the first number. Chose one player to start the game. Then each player in turn, beginning with the starting player and moving clockwise around the circle, rolls the die. For each game, each player rolls the die ten times. (For the 9th game, each player must choose a different number.)

There may also be games played with a penny, a pencil, and a piece of paper. But that's a different story.

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Old Maid Is a Simple Card Game

One of the first card games I ever played, and one of the simplest games, was Old Maid. (War is probably simpler, but that's another story.)

For those who have never played Old Maid, here are the rules using a store-bought deck of Old Maid cards. This deck consists of multiple pairs of matching cards and one Old Maid card.

One player shuffles the cards and deals them one at a time around the circle of players until all of the cards have been dealt. It doesn't matter if some players have more cards than others. Each player looks at his cards and removes any matching pairs of cards, placing them face-up on the table.

Then the players take turns playing, beginning with the player to the left of the dealer and moving clockwise around the circle. On your turn, take a card, unseen, from the first player to your right who has cards left to play. If that card matches a card in your hand, place that pair of cards on the pile of matches. If you run out of cards, you stop taking turns. You simply observe for the rest of the game.

Keep playing until the last pair of cards has been matched. The player left holding the Old Maid loses the game.

You can play Old Maid with a standard deck of playing cards. Just add a Joker, which takes the place of the Old Maid.

You can shorten the game if you remove cards from the deck. A store-bought Old Maid deck is usually smaller than a deck of playing cards. So you could remove the 2's, 3's, 4's, and 5's.

You can also control the length of the game based on how you match cards. If you match by rank and color (the Six of Clubs matches only the Six of Spades), the game is longer. If you match by rank alone (the Six of Clubs matches either the Six of Spades or the Six of Diamonds or the Six of Hearts), the game is shorter. And if you match by rank and opposite-color (the Six of Clubs matches either the Six of Diamonds or the Six of Hearts), the game is an in-between length.

You can also play without the Joker. You can remove a Queen from the deck so that the unmatched Queen becomes the Old Maid, or you can remove a King so that the unmatched King becomes the Old Bachelor. Or you can remove some other card. You can even remove a card so that the players don't see which card has been removed.

You can remove specific multiple cards. You can remove a King, a Queen, and a Jack.

Or you can remove multiple cards without the players seeing them. For instance, remove five random cards. If there are no pairs in these cards, there are five Old Maids. If there is one pair, there are three Old Maids. If there are two pairs, there is just one Old Maid. Nobody knows which cards are Old Maids or how many Old Maids there are.

However you play, Old Maid is still a game of random selection. You select a card randomly from another player. There is some skill involved in matching cards, but not as much skill as is used in most other card games.

So how about a change in the rules? How about playing Old Maid so that on your turn you pass a card to another player?

The new rules are as follows. The cards are dealt as in Old Maid. Each player still looks at her cards and removes any matching pairs of cards, placing them face-up on the table. And the players take turns playing, beginning with the player to the left of the dealer and moving clockwise around the circle. But before regular turns begin, the dealer picks a card from his hand and places it face-down on the table near the player to his left.

On your turn, look at the card that was passed to you. If that card matches a card in your hand, place that pair of cards face-up on the pile of matches. Otherwise, place the passed card back face-down on the table. Pick a card from your hand and lay it face-down by the first player to your left who has cards left to play. Then pick up the card that was passed to you and put it in your hand.

The rest of the game is played just like Old Maid. The player who ends up with the Old Maid loses the game. But there is more room for strategy. You can keep track of the cards that you passed and the cards that were matched. You can use that knowledge to help you choose which card to pass.

And Old Maid is still a simple card game.

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Free Card Games

I notice that a lot of people are searching the internet for free card games. Tens of thousands of people. I'm guessing that most of these people are looking for interactive computer card games such as Hearts which comes standard with Windows on PC computers.

But there is an alternative source. Just follow a few simple steps to find free card games the old fashioned way.

STEP 1. Find a deck of playing cards.

There may be a computer application that is equivalent to a deck of playing cards, but that's not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about a standard deck of 52 playing cards, the kind you can hold and shuffle and deal.

You could buy a deck of cards in a store, but it wouldn't be free. So I would start by looking in your junk drawers and storage boxes. A deck of cards might have found its way into one of them at some time or another.

Or ask relatives, Mom and Dad and Brothers and Sisters and Aunts and Uncles and Cousins, if they have an extra deck of playing cards that they can spare. Or you can ask your friends the same question. You might offer to show your appreciation by playing a card game with them sometime soon.

Or offer to do some work in exchange for a deck of playing cards. Offer to mow a lawn, or paint a fence, or rake some leaves, or wash a car. It might take several lawn mowings to earn a deck of playing cards.

(If all else fails, you can always ask for a deck of playing cards as a birthday or a Christmas present.)

STEP 2. Find the rules of a card game.

Go to your local library and find a book that contains a collection of card game rules. Check the book out, and find a game that interests you. Look for a card game played by two or more players. You can hand-write the rules. This is virtually free, just the cost of ink and paper. You could also copy the rules using a copy machine, but this would cost you money.

Or ask friends and relatives if they have a book of card game rules that you can borrow. If so, borrow the book, find a game that interests you, and record the rules.

Or go online to look for card game rules. If you don't have internet access at home, ask friends or relatives if you can use their computer for a little while. Or you might be able to access the internet for free at a local library or school. If you can get online, go to a search engine and search for 'CARD GAME RULES'. Or just go to a website featuring card game rules such as 'www.pagat.com'. Once again, find a game that interests you, and record the rules.

(If all else fails, ask a friend or relative to teach you a simple card game that you don't know or that you have forgotten such as Crazy Eights, Fan Tan, I Doubt It, or Oh Pshaw, or even Go Fish.)

STEP 3. Get some people together.

You will now have to find people to play cards with. That means asking friends or relatives if they would be free some evening or sometime during an upcoming weekend to play cards. If so, set the date.

If you experience resistance, try a little begging. Try to cry if you can. That works sometime.

(If all else fails, wait for a family gathering and bring your playing cards and rules. You might be able to play a card game with someone there.)

STEP 4. Then with the cards and the rules and the people, you play a card game.

Seat the players around the table, and place the cards and anything else necessary to play the game (maybe a pen and a score pad) on the table. Then, referencing the rules that you recorded, play cards.

STEP 5. Evaluate the card game.

Was the card game fun? Would you like play it again sometime?

At the same time you should ask yourself one other thing. Did you enjoy playing cards with friends/relatives? Playing cards is like playing board games or playing video games or playing parlor games like charades with other people. There's a lot of interaction.

You can find out what's new, and what books people have read and recommend, and how the weather is. You can smile when you have succeeded in choosing the right cards to play. You can offer some praise when someone else has scored some hard-earned points. That's what the PC game of Hearts lacks. You can't turn to Sally and ask, "What's your favorite TV show?", and expect a reply.

If you didn't like the card game, follow the above steps to pick another card game and get together with friends or relatives and play that game. And if you did like the card game, then gather some friends or relatives together sometime soon and play it again. Free card games.

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Five Traditional Card Games

I wonder how many people are aware of the variety of traditional card games that can be played with a standard deck of playing cards. Most probably played card games such as Crazy Eights and Memory when they were kids. Many have played on-line games such as Hearts, which is standard on PC computers. (Is Hearts also on the Mac?) And Texas Hold 'Em Poker and other casino games are quite popular. But how about games like Casino (not a gambling game), or Go Boom, or Oh Hell, or Kings Corners, or Michigan? Some of these games may be familiar to some readers, but I'm sure that there are lots of people who haven't heard of any of them. Let me describe them.

CASINO is a fishing game where you use a card in your hand to capture one or more face-up cards from the table. You can capture cards with the same rank as your card, or you can capture sets of cards that add up to the rank of your card, or both. Or you can use your card to build a set of cards on the table that you will take on a future turn, unless your opponent takes it first. Or you can lay a card face-up on the table. The player with the highest score based upon the cards she or he has captured wins.

GO BOOM is a trick-taking game with a twist. The tricks are worthless. It's like Crazy Eights because you must play a card with the same suit or the same rank as the last card played. And it's like Crazy Eights because, if you cannot play a card to a trick, you must draw cards from the draw pile until you can. Each player plays one card to the trick with the highest card winning the trick. The first player to get rid of his or her cards wins.

KINGS CORNERS is a layout game in which you play cards onto eight piles surrounding a draw pile. There is a pile above, below, to the right, and to the left of the draw pile. Kings are laid on the four corner spaces around the draw pile. You build descending sequences of cards on the piles where each card is one number lower than and the opposite color of the card beneath it. You can place a card or cards on a pile. You can move one pile to another if the sequence and color-pattern is followed. You can start a new pile if the space in the layout is empty. And if you lay down all of your cards during your turn, you win.

MICHIGAN is a sequence-building game in which you play cards onto an ascending sequence of cards. For each hand, all of the cards are dealt out to the players plus to one extra unused hand. The player to the left of the dealer plays the lowest card held in any suit. The players then lay down the cards in that suit in ascending order until either the high card is played or the next higher card is unavailable. The player who laid down the last card then lays down the lowest card held in any suit, and the game continues. The first player to run out of cards wins.

OH HELL (or OH PSHAW in genteel circles) is a trick-taking game in which each player must take the exact number of tricks bid on a hand in order to score. With four players, thirteen hands are played. One card is dealt to each player in the first hand, two cards in the second hand, and so on. For each hand, each player in turn bids the number of tricks she or he will take. The total number bid by all players must not equal the total number of tricks, so the dealer must make the last bid accordingly. Then the player to the left of the dealer leads to the first trick. If you take the exact number of tricks that you bid, you score points for that hand. If not, you score zero points. After the last hand, the player with the most points wins.

If any of these games sound interesting, you can find complete rules on-line. Try 'www.pagat.com', or 'www.bicyclecards.com'. Then bring a new game to family game night. Or gather friends or relatives together and have a fun evening of talk and pizza and cards.

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Family Game Night Lite

I have recently seen some television ads about 'family game night'. These ads suggest that you go out and buy some new board games and video games to play with the family once a week on family game night. I see nothing wrong with this idea. I used to love playing board games when I was a kid (which was before the advent of video games by the way). But you should not forget games played with regular playing cards and regular dice, classic games that have been played and enjoyed for years. Including some of these games in family game night would add variety for little extra cost.

When I think back to my childhood, I remember having fun playing the board games and store-bought card games that were popular at the time. But I also fondly remember when my family went camping and we would sit at the picnic table at night playing Cribbage by the light of a kerosene lamp. My wife cherishes the times when she was a girl and she went to her grandmother's house and played Canasta all afternoon. And when I was in college, I loved playing Hearts and Oh Pshaw with my college friends.

How many card games do you remember playing as a child? War, and Memory, and Go Fish, and Crazy Eights. And you may have played Authors and Old Maid using cards specifically printed for those games, but they can both be played using regular playing cards. And you may have played the dice game Shut The Box using a special box with numbered tiles on hinges, but you can substitute playing cards for the tiles. Instead of shutting the box, you flip the cards. And you can play the dice game Yacht, the free version of a similarly-named dice game, using five dice and a readily available score sheet.

I think in this day and age of computers and video games, people tend to forget simpler times when a game of Hearts could bring a group of people together for an evening of conversation and snacking and fun. It's sort of ironic that Hearts is a game that most people can find in the Games folder on their computer. You can play against three computer opponents, but you cannot ask "How was your day?" and expect an answer from any of them.

Go to a bookstore or library and pick up a book of game rules. Or look on the Internet for 'Card Game Rules' or 'Dice Game Rules'. Brush-up on the rules of a card or dice game that you like but have not played for a long time. Or learn the rules of an unfamiliar game that looks interesting. Then bring the game to family game night.

You can even try a 'family game night lite' where you lay a couple of decks of cards and a half-dozen dice on the table and play nothing except classic card and dice games. Who knows? Maybe the family will request 'family game night lite' once a month.

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A Simple Card Game for Toddlers

Creating games becomes more of a challenge when you try to create a game that youngsters can play. And the younger the player, the bigger the challenge.

I was trying to think of a simple card game that my three year old grandson could play. I was stumped.

Then, as a group of us sat and talked one Saturday afternoon in a friend's living room, someone noticed the twelve coasters on the coffee table. There were six sea designs on the coasters -- fish and seahorses and waves -- and each design was on a pair of coasters.

So someone asked my grandson to find the matching pairs, and he proceeded to do so.

It reminded me of the card game, Concentration. And that gave me the seed of an idea for a simple card game for toddlers.

Concentration is mainly a memory game. When you flip over a Seven, you try to remember where the Seven was that Sue flipped over five minutes ago. But toddlers have not yet developed the necessary memory skills to do this. So I decided that in my new game, the cards that are flipped face-up remain that way for the rest of the game. You don't have to memorize where the cards are located because they are always there for you to see.

For the playing cards, I could use the whole deck as you do for Concentration, but that could be pretty overwhelming for toddlers. So I started with just two suits of the same color, the Hearts and Diamonds. And since the face cards would be unfamiliar to toddlers, I used just the Aces through Tens.

To play this game, seat the players around the table, shuffle the cards, and lay them face-down in four rows with five cards in each row. You end up with a four-by-five rectangle of cards.

Then take turns playing beginning with one player picked at random, and moving clockwise around the table.

On your turn, you flip over two cards and look for pairs. You can use the cards you just flipped over and cards that have been flipped over in previous turns. If you find a pair, take it. Take as many as you can find. Then your turn ends. Do not flip any cards face-down.

Keep playing until all of the cards have been paired and taken. Then each player counts her or his cards. The player with the most cards wins.

You can change the game by using two different colored suits, such as Hearts and Spades. This would be slightly more confusing for a toddler, but still fairly simple.

Or you could stick with Hearts and Diamonds, but use the Aces through Kings. You would have to show a toddler the face cards before the game, and explain how to match these cards.

When your toddler has mastered the beginning game, try increasing the number of cards by using the Aces through Eights of all four suits.

Eventually you could use all 52 cards.

This, of course, will ultimately lead to the original game, Concentration. But that will take a few years.

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