Crazy Eights Card Game Rules

Crazy Eights is a shedding game for 2 to 6 players. Every card played goes onto one pile in the middle of the table, and what you put down has to match the top card by suit or by rank. Empty your hand before the others and you have won the round.

The eights are wild, which is where the name comes from. An eight goes on any card at all, and the player who puts it down says which suit everyone follows next. The same game turns up as Swedish Rummy or Rockaway in English, as Mau-Mau in Germany, and as Vri åtter in Norway. Norwegians also play Olsen, which is a close relative rather than the same game.

A standard 52-card deck with the jokers taken out.

• 2 to 6 players
• Table space for a draw pile and a discard pile
• Paper and a pen if you play for points

With five or six at the table the draw pile keeps running dry. Two decks shuffled together fix that and change nothing else.

Anyone can deal the first hand. After that the deal passes to the left.

The dealer hands out five cards each, one card at a time. Two players get seven each, because a hand of five runs out too quickly when only two people play.

What is left of the deck goes face down in the middle as the draw pile. Turn its top card face up beside it and the discard pile has started. That card is what the first player has to match. If it happens to be an eight, push it back into the deck and turn a new one.

The player to the dealer's left goes first, and play moves clockwise.

On your turn you add one card to the discard pile, matching either the suit or the rank of the card already there. With the K♦️ showing you can play any diamond, or any other king.

Whatever you play becomes the next player's problem. Put down the K♣️ and clubs is the suit to follow, so the player after you needs a club, another king or an eight.

Any eight can go down whatever the pile shows, which is the one exception to the matching rule. As you put it down you name the suit that counts from then on, and the choice is entirely yours. It has nothing to do with the suit of the eight itself.

The next player must follow the suit you named or play an eight of their own. While an eight sits on top of the pile, its own suit is irrelevant. Only the suit that was said out loud matters.

Nothing stops you from spending an eight while you still have a legal card in hand. It is the handiest card in the deck and the most expensive one to be caught with, since an eight left in your hand costs you 50 points.

Draw from the pile when your hand holds no legal play. Anything you can put straight down ends the turn there. Otherwise keep drawing, though never past a third card, and pass if that third one leaves you no better off than the first.

Drawing is allowed even when a legal card is sitting right there in your hand. Taking a card costs you little, and it lets you keep an eight, or your last diamond, for a turn where it does more damage.

When the draw pile is empty, leave the top card of the discard pile where it is, shuffle everything below it and put it back face down as the new draw pile.

Say "last card" out loud as you play your second-to-last card. If you forget and one of the others notices before the next player has played, you draw three cards as a penalty.

The announcement is there so the table can react. Once everyone knows you are one card from going out, the suit tends to swing away from whatever they think you are holding.

Four players, and the 6♣️ starts the discard pile.

Ben plays the 6♥️, which moves the game into hearts without any help from an eight. Chloe holds no heart and no six, so she draws the K♠️, then the 2♣️, then the 4♠️. Three cards and not a legal one among them, so she passes.

Dan plays the J♥️. Anna answers with the J♦️ and diamonds are live. Ben has nothing in diamonds, but he does hold the 8♠️. He plays it and calls clubs, which is the moment Chloe finally gets to use that 2♣️.

The round stops the moment a player lays down their last card. Everyone else counts up what they are still holding:

• Eights: 50 points
• Kings, queens and jacks: 10 points
• Aces: 1 point
• Number cards 2 to 10: face value, so a seven costs 7 points

The player who went out scores nothing. Note the totals, deal again, and keep going until someone passes the target you agreed on, usually 100 points. The lowest total wins the game.

For a quick game, play a single round and let the first player out be the winner.

The version here is the standard one: 52 cards without jokers, five to a hand and seven when only two people play, with the eight as the sole wild card. A turn with no legal card means drawing as many as three, and hands are scored up to 100 points. Skip, reverse and draw-two cards belong to the variants.