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.
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.
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.
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.
Pedro is an American trick-taking card game of the all fours family based on auction pitch. Its most popular variant is known as cinch, double Pedro or high five which was developed in Denver, Colorado, around 1885 and soon regarded as the most important American member of the all fours family. Although it went out of fashion with the rise of auction bridge, it is still widely played on the western coast of the United States and in its southern states, being the dominant game in South Louisiana. Forms of the game have been reported from Nicaragua, the Azores, Niobe NY, Italy, and Finland. The game is primarily played by four players in fixed partnerships, but can also be played by 2–6 individual players.
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.
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.
The rules here are based on those of the American Cribbage Congress and apply to two-, three- or four-player games, with details of variations being listed below.
Chinchón is a matching card game played in Spain, Uruguay, Argentina, Cape Verde and other places. It is a close variant of gin rummy, with which it shares the same objective: making sets, groups or runs, of matching cards.
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.
German Rummy or Rommé is the most popular form of the worldwide game, Rummy, played in Austria and Germany. It is a game for 2 to 6 players and is played with two packs of French playing cards, each comprising 52 cards and 3 jokers. There are no partnerships. In Germany, the Germany Rummy Association is the umbrella organisation for local rummy clubs and organises national competitions. The game is often just known as Rommé in Germany and Rummy in Austria.
