Category: CARD GAME RULES

Some games are simpler than others. If you want to learn how to play bridge, maybe you should start with a simple game, something like spades. Spades is a game of trick-taking, which is very similar to Hearts, Whist and Bridge. 

Spades is a different game, one that you should try to play if you want to dive into the world of trick-taking games. Spades is not easy, but it is also not that difficult. Here are the rules of spades, so that you can play the game with your friends.

The Basics of Spades

The only thing that we need is the ace of spades, or so the song goes. In this game, the ace of spades is the card that is always worth the most. Spades is a game where you have four players who are partnered up. A standard 52 deck of cards is used, with the jokers removed.

The game has two phases, bidding and card play.

The game requires two of the players to partner up.

The bidding phase comes after the cards are dealt, every player getting 13 cards. Bidding means that the players state how many tricks they think they can win. A trick is when all four players play a single card. 

Bidding is used to tell your partner the relative strength of your cards. Once you bid a number, or even zero, the game proceeds to the play stage.

Playing Spades

When the bidding is done, one of the players is chosen at random to start placing cards in the center. Every player places one card and this card must be followed suit if you have a card. If you don’t have one, you can place another card. The spades suit is always trump and placing a spade if you don’t have another card from the different suit takes the trick.

The highest card always wins, ace being the highest and the ace suit always wins against other suits, no matter the number. A deal is played until all 13 cards have been played. After that, comes the scoring.

Scoring in Spades

Scoring in spades seems complicated but it actually isn’t. In order to win points, you and your partner must both win at least one trick or zero if you bid zero. If you both win your bid, you get 10 points for every successful bid. Teams also lose points if they bid more than they could win. 

If a team bids zero but wins a trick, then they lose 50 points, or a 100, depending on whether the game is played until 250 or 500 points. 

Tips and Tricks

Spades is a game of communication where you should communicate with your partner, though not directly, of course. The bidding is the most important part of that, knowing where the cards might be. If your partner bid one, then that means that they have poor cards. If another bids 6, then their cards are very strong. Uf your partner bid zero, then you must manage to help them lose all the tricks that they play.

Spades is a great trick-taking game that you can play anywhere, as long as you find three more people. There are online versions which make things easier for upcoming players and those who are short on time. 

Some games are simpler than others, and blackjack is among the many games that most people can learn how to play relatively quickly. For a game that is played only against one other person, blackjack is definitely a game that ends up confusing more people than it should.

For a 1v1 game, blackjack often seems like it is a game where you compete against other people as well. It is not so. Here are the rules of blackjack, so that you always know what you are up against.

The Basics of Blackjack

Blackjack is a rather simple game of you against the dealer. The game is played with a standard 52 deck, however, multiple decks are almost always used, typically six of them, for a total of 312 cards. They are shuffled together prior to any gameplay.

The object of the game is to get to the number 21, or as close as possible to it. If you go over 21, you go bust and lose. The game has two phases, the one where you bet and the other one where you play.

You basically place chips on the little square at the table. After you have placed your bet, you are dealt two cards face up, as well as the dealer. Variations of blackjack allow you to have one card face up and another in your hands, but that is rare nowadays.

Once you get the cards, you can choose to be hit, or get another card, or to stand and pass. Numerical cards are worth their value, face cards are each worth 10 points and the ace is worth 1 or 11, whichever helps the player more. 

You play until either you or the dealer go bust or hit a 21, or until you pass. 

Basic Blackjack Calls

You can call Hit to get another card. This can be signaled with a tap on the table. You can call for a Stand, which means that you don’t want more cards dealt, which can be signaled by waving your hand sideways, hand palm down. You can double down on your bet if you feel sure that you will win the following hand. You can surrender, in which case you are given half of your current bet, in case that you don’t find your cards advantageous. 

You can split your bet, meaning you place an exact bet. The condition required for that is to get two cards of the same value. Splitting a bet is useful if you have two cards that you think could help you win two or one of the two separate bets.

Tips and Tricks

Blackjack is about you and the dealer. There may be other players at the table, but their cards mean nothing. You don’t need to look or care about their cards. The other players at the table play their own game against the dealer. What you care about is whether you can win against the dealer. 

You also want to avoid going bust. Surrendering if you have a huge initial score with just the two cards is a viable strategy, unless you get a 20, in which case you might as well stand. 

Blackjack is a relatively simple game that anyone can learn how to play. You can play it in casinos or online, if you want to practice. You can also play it in person, you just need another player. 

Some games like poker are known to many people, at least we think that they are. Even though poker is a rather famous card game, not everyone is familiar with the rules. Poker is a hard game to master, but knowing the rules of all the variations makes things rather complicated.

This is why it would be best to learn a set of rules which apply to at least all variations of poker, or most of them. Here are the basic rules of poker and some other things that you should know about the game.

The Basics of Poker

Poker is a game which is played with a standard 52 deck of cards. The game of poker is played so that the dealer, or a player denoted playing first, always plays first. In casinos online and land, the dealer is not a player. A token symbolizes who plays first.

The game unfolds thusly:

Each of the players gets two cards by the dealer. The first player places the small blind, which is the initial bet and then the next one in order places the big blind. Every player places a bet according to the two cards that they have in hand.

The dealer deals three community cards face up. Already, the players can see their potential hand. This is where a lot of the bluffing could occur. 

The second round of betting takes place and the dealer places the fourth card, known as the turn.

A third round of betting takes place and the dealer places the fifth and final card, known as the river.

Players place their bets once more. If two or more players have yet to fold, all the players show their hands and the highest ranked hand takes the pot.

Tips and Tricks in Poker

The first thing to realize in poker is that you have to know which hand counts the most. Typically, five of a pair is the strongest possible hand, where duplicates and joker cards are allowed. Next in line is the royal flush, which is a set of five cards in the same suit, from 10 to ace. 

The next thing to realize is that poker is a game where most people will try to trick you with facial expressions, also known as bluffing. Body language will show one thing while the cards another, so be careful not to get tricked into betting more than you can win. Poker requires a lot of knowledge and calmness to be played among the best of the best. 

Poker Types

There are a variety of poker types, the most common ones being community, straight, draw and stud. 

Community poker involves players getting their cards and using community cards to have the highest possible score, as stated above.

Straight poker is simple, everyone gets five cards and then they bet and show their cards, or fold, depending on the cards, of course. 

In draw poker, players get five cards, but they can replace some of the cards in hope of getting a better hand. 

Stud poker gives players a card face up and the next one, face down. In between the cards being dealt, players can place bets.

These are the basic rules of poker and some tips and tricks that you should know about the game. 

Card games are complicated to learn and even more complicated to master. Games like bridge are almost impossible to learn on your own unless you have a decent guide. A guide can be anything from online games to experts who have been playing the game for decades. 

Bridge is complicated even for seasoned players. Here is what you should know about the rules of bridge, even though it will be almost impossible to grasp at once.

The Basics of Bridge

Bridge is often played by four players, two times two, meaning that there are two partnerships. Bridge uses a standard 52 card deck. It is divided into four suits, spades, clubs, hearts and diamonds, ace being the card with the most worth.

The cards are dealt so that every player has 13 cards. After the cards are dealt, one of the teams plays first, and they are called the Declarer, or rather, one of the two people in the partnership. The other two are the Defenders. The Declarer’s partner is called the Dummy and their cards are laid on the table, face up.

The game has a bidding phase where you have to state how many tricks it will take you to win a deal. When all players pass consecutively, the bidding phase is over. Bidding is done so that you can tell your partner what type of cards you have. If you bid 4S, it means that you consider spades as your way to victory, in at least 4 contracted tricks. 

Bridge Gameplay

The game is played clockwise and the Declarer starts first, declaring a trump or notrump card. Once the Declarer starts with the opening hand, the Dummy’s cards are turned face up and placed on the table. All players must follow suit if they have the card. The highest card in the suit wins the trick.

If the player doesn’t have a suit, they can play a trump card, and win the trick. At the end of a deal, the declaring pair’s number of tricks is compared against the contract they made, and if they met the criteria, they score some points, based on how the tricks went.

If they didn’t meet the criteria, then the defenders score. 

A Game of Tactics

Bridge is a game where you have to play with your partner at all times. Even the best professionals often relied on their partner more than on their own knowledge. As a team game, you must use teamwork if you want to succeed.

Communication and problem solving are among the two most important skills to practice if you want to be good at bridge.

The rules, while complicated, become obvious after a game or two of bridge. 

As a game which requires lots of problem solving, it is not one that can be played in five minutes. Typical bridge sessions last about six hours or more, depending on who is playing and whether it is a tournament or a casual match between friends.

Duplicate Bridge

Duplicate bridge is mostly played at tournaments and clubs. The same exact hands are dealt across multiple tables, hence the name duplicate. The scoring is based on relative performance across all teams. Since they are duplicated, all the tables are either Declarers or Defenders, so every table must do good in order to actually win. 

Bridge is a very hard game to play, particularly if you want to master it. It is a game of skill and patience, problem solving and communication. Firstly, you should learn the rules and after that, start playing with people. 

Card games are popular and we tend to play them to socialize. Some card games are more popular than others, with bridge, blackjack and poker sitting at the top. However, younger people do not like playing games which are too complicated. This is where card games such as UNO come in.

Interested in the rules? Look no further!

UNO – The Rules

UNO is a game that uses a deck with 112 cards and is typically played with three other people. The cards are as follows. There are 19 number cards ranging from 0 to 9, for each of the four colors. The colors are blue, green, red and yellow. There are 8 skip cards, 2 cards per color. The game also has 8 reverse and 8 draw 2 cards, each color having two cards. The game also has 4 wild cards and 4 wild draw cards.

The Object of the Game

The game is won by getting 500 points. In order to win points, the player must not have any cards in their hand. Every player starts with 7 cards, dealt by the player who got the highest number card from the deck. Once the cards are dealt, the top most card is picked, and is added to the DISCARD pile. The rest of the cards are turned face down and are then considered the DRAW pile.

Gameplay

The game is played clockwise, with each player having to match the card on the DISCARD pile, which is facing up, by number or color. The draw cards force the next player in line to draw more cards. The reverse card reverses the order of play. Draw cards can be matched by the same draw cards, thus making the next person in line drawing the sum of the card’s amount. 

If the player has no card to match the topmost DISCARD pile card, they have to draw a card and play it. If they don’t draw a matching card, they lose a turn.

Wild Cards and Skip Cards

Wild cards can change the color of play. Wild draw cards do the same, but they have to have a matching card in the deck, or rather, a card they would be able to otherwise play. Illegally placed cards can be challenged. 

A successful challenge makes the person committing the illegal action draw 4 cards while a failed one makes the person who challenged draw 6 cards. The challenge can be made by only the person who initially had to draw the 4 cards.

Skip cards make the next person skip their turn.

The Endgame

When a player has only one remaining card in their hands, they need to say UNO. If they don’t and the other players are aware of it, they have to draw 4 more cards. The player who has no cards remaining gets a set number of points, based on the remaining cards in the other players’ hands. 

UNO is a great game that is very easy to pick up and even easier to play. It can get very competitive, so pay attention to your friends. It is a great pastime and a good way to socialize.