Olsen Card Game Rules

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

The name is the word you say once you are down to a single card. Olsen and Crazy Eights are close relatives and often confused. Crazy Eights seats up to six, hands two players seven cards each, keeps score across rounds and punishes a missed call. Olsen does none of that.

A standard 52-card deck. Leave the jokers in the box.

• 2 to 4 players
• Room on the table for a draw pile and a discard pile

Four hands of five use twenty cards, so the draw pile has plenty left in it. Pen and paper stay in the drawer, because nothing is written down.

The dealer gives five cards to each player, one at a time. Five is the number whether two of you are playing or four.

The remainder of the deck sits face down in the middle and becomes the draw pile. Turn its top card over and set it beside the pile. That card starts the discard pile, and the first player has to answer it. An eight turned up this way goes back into the deck, and you turn the next card instead.

Playing more than one round, the deal moves a seat to the left each time.

Whoever sits to the dealer's left plays the first card, and the turn passes clockwise.

Each turn you put down one card that matches the top of the pile, either by suit or by rank. With the nine of hearts showing, any heart will do, and so will any other nine.

Play the nine of spades on the nine of hearts and you have moved the game into spades. The card on top always decides what the next player has to produce.

An eight can be played on anything at all. It needs neither the suit nor the rank of the card below it, and that is what makes it the twist card.

As the eight goes down, say which suit applies from then on. You choose freely, whatever suit the eight itself happens to belong to. Now the next player has to produce a card in that suit, or an eight of their own.

Playing an eight while you still hold a legal card is allowed. Early in a round it mostly wastes the card, because an eight is what rescues you later, when the suit on the pile is one you have nothing in.

Take a card from the draw pile when nothing in your hand is legal. A card you can use goes down straight away. If it does not help, draw again, up to three cards in the one turn. Still stuck after the third and you lose the turn.

You are also allowed to draw when you could have played. One more card in hand is a fair price for holding on to an eight until it does some damage.

An empty draw pile is refilled from the discards. Leave the top card where it is, shuffle the rest, and put them back face down.

The moment a play leaves you holding one card, say Olsen out loud. That call is where the game gets its name.

It warns the table, and nothing more. Forget it and there is no penalty, no cards to draw, and you are still one card from going out. Tables raised on Crazy Eights sometimes carry the three-card penalty across, but it is no part of Olsen.

Saying it gives the others a turn to do something about you. Once they know you are one card away, they keep their eights back and steer the suit away from whatever they think you are holding.

The round is over the moment somebody plays their last card, and that player has won.

Everyone else is placed by what is still in their hand. Fewest cards takes second, next fewest third, and so on down the table. Two players holding the same number share a place.

Nothing is scored, and there is no target to play up to. A single round is a whole game of Olsen. Shuffle and deal again if you want another one.

Four players sit down, and the four of clubs is turned up to start the pile.

Ella plays the king of clubs. Finn has no club and no king, so he draws the two of hearts, which is no use to him. His second draw is the six of clubs, and down it goes.

Greta plays the six of spades and moves the game into spades. Hugo follows with the ten of spades, is left holding one card, and says Olsen.

Ella has no wish to watch him win, so she puts the eight of diamonds on the pile and calls hearts. Hugo has nothing in hearts, draws his three cards, finds none of them any use and loses the turn. One card became four in a single turn.

These rules are Olsen as it is played in Norway, and as the app of the same name plays it: 52 cards without jokers, five to each of two to four players, and the eight as the only wild card. You draw up to three cards when you cannot follow, you say Olsen with one card left and pay nothing for forgetting, and one round settles the game. A penalty for the missed call, scoring across rounds and action cards are all listed under the variants.