Poker is a family of comparing card games in which players wager over which hand is best according to that specific game's rules. It is played worldwide, but in some places the rules may vary. While the earliest known form of the game was played with just 20 cards, today it is usually played with a standard deck, although in countries where short packs are common, it may be played with 32, 40 or 48 cards. Thus poker games vary in deck configuration, the number of cards in play, the number dealt face up or face down, and the number shared by all players, but all have rules that involve one or more rounds of betting.
Klondike is a card game for one player and the best known and most popular version of the patience or solitaire family, as well as one of the most challenging in widespread play. It has spawned numerous variants including Batsford, Easthaven, King Albert, Thumb and Pouch, Somerset or Usk and Whitehead, as well as the American variants of the games, Agnes and Westcliff. The distinguishing feature of all variants is a triangular layout of the tableau, building in ascending sequence and packing in descending order.
Canasta is a card game of the rummy family of games believed to be a variant of 500 rum. Although many variations exist for two, three, five or six players, it is most commonly played by four in two partnerships with two standard decks of cards. Players attempt to make melds of seven cards of the same rank and "go out" by playing all cards in their hands.
President is a shedding card game for three or more, in which the players race to get rid of all of the cards in their hands in order to become "president" in the following round. It is a Westernized version of Chinese climbing card games such as Zheng Shangyou, Tien Len in Vietnam and the Japanese Daifugō.
Euchre or eucre is a trick-taking card game commonly played in Australia, Canada, Great Britain, New Zealand, and the Midwestern United States. It is played with a deck of 24, 25, 28, or 32 standard playing cards. There are normally four players, two on each team, although there are variations for two to nine players.
The Joker is a playing card found in most modern French-suited card decks, as an addition to the standard four suits. Since the second half of the 20th century, they have also been found in Spanish- and Italian-suited decks, excluding stripped decks.
Ninety-nine is a card game for 2, 3, or 4 players. It is a trick-taking game that can use ordinary French-suited cards. Ninety-nine was created in 1967 by David Parlett; his goal was to have a good 3-player trick-taking game with simple rules yet great room for strategy.
Brag is an 18th century British card game, and the British national representative of the vying or "bluffing" family of gambling games. It is a descendant of the Elizabethan game of Primero and one of the several ancestors to poker, the modern version just varying in betting style and hand rankings. It has been described as the "longest-standing British representative of the Poker family."
Spite and malice, also known as cat and mouse, is a relatively modern American card game for two or more players. It is a reworking of the late 19th-century Continental game crapette, also known as Russian bank, and is a form of competitive solitaire, with a number of variations that can be played with two or three regular decks of cards.
Paskahousu is a popular Finnish card game for two to six players, but three to five are best. The object of the game is to play higher cards than the previously played cards, first to get replacement cards from the stock pile, and, after the stock pile has exhausted, to get rid of one's cards.
Durak is a traditional Russian card game that is popular in many post-Soviet states. It is Russia's most popular card game, having displaced Preferans. It has since become known in other parts of the world. The objective of the game is to shed all one's cards when there are no more cards left in the deck. At the end of the game, the last player with cards in their hand is the durak or 'fool'.
Mau-Mau is a card game for two to five players that is popular in Germany, Austria, South Tyrol, the United States, Brazil, Greece, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Israel and the Netherlands. Mau-Mau is a member of the shedding family, to which the game Crazy Eights with the proprietary card game Uno belongs. Other similar games are Whot! or Switch. However, Mau-Mau is played with standard French or German-suited playing cards.
Golf is a card game where players try to earn the lowest number of points over the course of nine deals.
Rummy is a group of games related by the feature of matching cards of the same rank or sequence and same suit. The basic goal in any form of rummy is to build melds which can be either sets or runs and either be first to go out or to amass more points than the opposition.
Pitch is an American trick-taking game equivalent to the British blind all fours which, in turn, is derived from the classic all fours. Historically, pitch started as "blind all fours", a very simple all fours variant that is still played in England as a pub game. The modern game involving a bidding phase and setting back a party's score if the bid is not reached came up in the middle of the 19th century and is more precisely known as auction pitch or setback.
Tiến lên is a shedding-type card game originating in Vietnam. It may be considered Vietnam's national card game, and is common in communities where Vietnamese migration has occoured. It is also played in the United States, sometimes under the names Viet Cong, VC, Thirteen, Killer, or 2’s.
Switch is a shedding-type card game for two or more players that is popular in the United Kingdom, Ireland and as alternative incarnations in other regions. The sole aim of Switch is to discard all of the cards in one's hand; the first player to play their final card, and ergo have no cards left, wins the game. Switch is very similar to the games Crazy Eights, UNO, Flaps, Mau Mau or Whot! belonging to the Shedding family of card games.
Three thirteen is a variation of the card game Rummy. It is an eleven-round game played with two or more players. It requires two decks of cards with the jokers removed. Like other Rummy games, once the hands are dealt, the remainder of the cards are placed face down on the table. The top card from the deck is flipped face up and put beside the deck to start the discard pile.
Smear is a North-American trick-taking card game of the all fours group, and a variant of pitch (setback). Several slightly different versions are played in Michigan, Minnesota, Northern and Central Iowa, Wisconsin and also in Ontario, Canada.
Indian Cherokee Rummy is a card game in India with little variation from original rummy. It may be considered a cross between Rummy 500 and gin rummy. Indian Rummy is a variant of the rummy game popular in India that involves making valid sets out of 13 cards that are distributed among every player on the table. Each player is dealt 13 cards initially; if the number of players is 2, then a 52 cards deck is chosen for the game and if there are 6 players, two decks of 52 cards each is combined for the game. Each player has to draw and discard cards by turns till one player melds their cards with valid sets that meet the Rummy validation rules. It could be that Indian Rummy evolved from a version of Rummy in South Asia, Celebes Rummy, also called Rhuk.
