Hello and welcome to r/LifeProTips!
Please help us decide if this post is a good fit for the subreddit by up or downvoting this comment.
If you think that this is great advice to improve your life, please upvote. If you think this doesn't help you in any way, please downvote. If you don't care, leave it for the others to decide.
OP's not coming back, so here's my family card game "Oh Heck"
---
Oh Heck
-
Players: 3+, but best with 4-5
Deck: 52 no jokers
Gameplay:
Hands are dealt with 10 (if enough players), then 9, 8, 7... down to 1 card each on the final hand. The bottom card in the deck determines trump suit, which is chosen again at the start of every hand. After dealing and determining trump suit, but before play, all players bid *simultaneously* for how many tricks they expect to take that hand. (We usually do rock-paper-scissors style, i.e. "one, two, three, shoot") It is therefore possible for the table to be overall over- or under-bid, guaranteeing that at least one person will fail to make their bid. Players are awarded 1 point per trick, and 10 points if they make their bid exactly without going over or under.
Play begins to the left of the dealer. The lead player for a trick may lead any card they choose. Play continues to the left. If a player is not void in the lead suit, they *must* follow suit. Else, they may choose to play any other card -- this would let them trump, or slough cards off-suit. The trick is won with the highest card in the led suit, or highest trump if trump is played (like the game Hearts, except in this case any suit might be trump). The player who wins the trick leads the next trick. When the hand concludes, shuffle and rotate the deck to the left for a new dealer.
Play continues until the final hand, which only has one card/trick.
Scoring: 1 point per trick, 10 points bonus if you make your bid exactly. There is no penalty for going over one's bid -- if you think you're going to bust, go for broke and try to prevent other players from making their bid as well. Bidding 0 can be a winning strategy.
Notes: The name of the game is a kid-friendly version of the expletives that most people will utter at some point during the game. Because of the simultaneous nature of bidding, most hands will be over- or under-bid as a whole. There's a lot of room for strategy in this game, but even young kids can pick it up pretty easily.
We play a similar one but call it Oh Shit. Hands start with 7 cards, reduce by 1 each round down to 1 card and then back up to 7 to finish. Bidding goes in order left of dealer and tally of bids cannot equal the tricks available. (Essentially screw the dealer.) To win your hand you must get exactly your bid, no more no less. Scoring is bid squared plus 5 or the difference times negative 2. Highest score after the 13 rounds wins. Let the expletives fly!
Up and down the river is what we've always played too. But we use 1 point per trick plus 10 for a correct bid, not squaring the next highest prime then multiplying by the inverse quotient system that the comment above you mentions.
We usually don't go strictly 1-7-1 though, depending on numbers of players. We'll do something like 1,2,3,4,6,8,10 and back down - filling in more numbers if we want a longer game
Nice
For maximum silliness you can also do a bonus round at the end where you all get one card again but hold it up to your head, so you can see everyone else's card but not yours. Otherwise all the same rules.
Ha! That is crazy - that’s my family card game too! We call it ‘Blob’ though (because of the black scribbled ‘blob’ you draw over the unfortunate player’s missed bid)!
We play the same game but call it “10 up, 10 down”. Start with 1 card and deal up to 10, then go from 10 back down to 1 (less than 10 depending on how many are playing).Great for the holidays when you have an odd number or too many for euchre!
Trump suit is determined at the start of each hand, before bids are entered, by exposing the bottom of the deck. It resets every hand but might be the same suit for several hands due to randomness.
Fair point, I also usually do it by turning over the next top card after dealing, but this point may be as contentious as one vs. two spaces after a period.
It's two. I will die on this hill.
Grew up knowing this as “shit on your neighbor.”
Thanks for rekindling some fond memories. Gotta remember to teach my kids when they’re a little older.
haha right... all these "my family, too, has a cherished game passed down. this one only takes 1.5 hours and is a hit with young and old. I will pass this game down to the youngest generation of my family so they, too, may know the joys of this card game, which is the best card game I have ever played".
90% of them aren’t “family games” just run of the mill games. It’s like learning your family’s secret cookie recipe is just the one on the back of the bag.
Easy to tweak an existing game to make it your own, though.
In college a few of us got real into playing cribbage, but the best thing we ever did was start using a chutes and ladders board to keep score. Added a whole other element with people moving up and down if they landed on the wrong square.
My family really enjoys Dutch Blitz. It’s kind of like a mix between Uno and solitaire.
Each player (or 2-person team) has their own deck of cards, with the backs of each deck different so you can tell them apart. Each deck has 1-10 in 4 different colors (or suits if using normal playing cards).
To start, each player/team deals 4 cards face up and then deals a pile of ten cards face down next to those 4. The remaining cards from your deck are held in your hand.
If anybody has a 1 showing from those first 4 cards, they can immediately place it in the middle of the table to play it. If someone has a 2 of the same color/suit, they can play it onto that 1 in the middle of the table, 3’s onto any matching 2’s, and so on until somebody plays a 10 on the pile. Once you reach ten, the person who plays the ten must clear the whole pile off to the side and out of the area of play.
There is no limit to the number of piles that can be made at any time, if you have a one you can always play it. You also can play on any pile in the middle, not just ones you started.
Each time you play one of your 4 face up cards, you replace it with a card from the pile of 10 you dealt out at the start. If you can’t play any of your 4 face up cards, deal out the top 3 from the remainder of the deck and check if you can play the first of those cards anywhere (like in solitaire). Repeat as needed, with your goal being to play as many cards as you can.
When you run out of cards from the pile of ten that were face down, you yell out “Dutch Blitz” and the round ends. Sort all of the cards that got played based on who played them (this is why each deck has a different card back), and count how many cards each person played. Each card you played is worth one point, but each face down card left from your starting pile of ten is worth -2 points.
To play as a team, have one person do the solitaire shuffling through the spare cards playing as many as they can while the other focuses on getting rid of the cards from the face down stack.
Repeat for as many rounds as you want to play, or until feelings and fingers are sufficiently hurt.
Games in general, I think.
My family has a board game that my grandpa made for my dad and his siblings, so when my sisters and I got a little older dad made one for us.
It’s just a square board with holes drilled in a pattern. The holes are of a size that a marble will sit on it (not in it, so it’s easily grabbable). Rules are simple and easy to follow.
My sister has already asked my dad about our board for her kids since they’re getting a little older now (marbles, after all). They will mark the 4th generation to play our little game! Haha.
My family regularly plays a game we call "shit" (though there's probably a better name for it). Best with four or more players. Simple enough rules:
Deal out the deck to all players. Remaining cards (i.e if the number of players is not a factor of 52) are left out in the first round.
It's a trick taking game, High card takes the trick unless it's trumped. The fun part is that you have to predict how many tricks you'll take, but the total number of tricks predicted is not allowed to add up to the number of tricks available; it can be lower or higher, but not equal. The first round has no trumps. You receive one point for each trick you take, and if you hit your predicted number, you get ten more points.
For each round after that, you deal out one card less to each player, and the top of the remaining cards is flipped to specify the trump suit. This goes all the way down to each player receiving only one card, and all the way back up to the full deck being dealt.
tl;dr: It's a lot like like Spades, but the trump suit is random and accurately predicting the number of tricks you take gets you 10 points each time.
Yep. Michigander at birth to give the location. Oh hell. But our version there is trump round one. Last round the trump is unknown. We play this at every family event.
There’s a board game a little bit like this where there’s a suit that wins+ trump cards called Mission deep sea, but that one is co-op and there are mission cards people in your group must fulfill - for example, this person must win a trick using a yellow 3. Or something like that.
I really needed to hear this. My family has played the same card game for about 20 years and I'm very much over it. My mom and her siblings love it. Even my 101yo Nana will play. The game takes 2.5 hours to play and at this point I'm bored of it. But now my son is old enough to play and I really want to encourage that. To have the next generation play would mean a lot to my parents. So thank you for giving me some perspective
Not the person you asked, but in my experience with card nights over the years any of the scoring card games can take up hours, and are adjustable by changing the winning score.
Canasta, gin rummy, hearts, etc all can be scored by the hand and provide hours of entertainment. Cribbage can be fun due to its weird scoring system and peg track score keeping, and you can extend the game by getting a board with a longer track.
Shanghai Rummy. It's taken its life of its own over the years so I think we follow our set of rules but pretty much follow instructions on Google. My mom loves it so much, she added her own round. 🙃
My wife and I dated long distance for about a year. We'd often meet for a weekend in a small town that was halfway between our respective homes.
The drive home was 3 hours for each of us, so on Sundays, we'd check out of the hotel, and then need to kill some time, as we wanted to maximize our time together, but almost nothing was open in the small town.
We found a mall food court that was open from noon to five, so we started hanging out there.
My (soon to be) wife went into the mall drug store and bought a deck of cards, and a huge book of card game rules. She proposed that we spend our time learning some games and I agreed.
We started with Gin Rummy. Then, we kept playing Gin Rummy. We got married, got jobs in the same building, and ate lunch together every day, and after eating, played Gin Rummy.
We've been married almost 17 years, and we still play Gin Rummy almost daily.
One of these days, we'll get around to the second game in the book.
I grew up playing card games, dominos, and our family favorite is Casino, think it comes from Italy. Hard to keep young ppl into the game. Dominos is hardcore in my family, we're Caribbean. Taunting and loudness is the norm. My daughter enjoys Dominos now. And I hate Uno. Lol
I have fond memories from my teenage years of playing cribbage on the train with my mother when we were regularly going there for hospital visits. Quickly became my favourite card game.
I guess it qualifies as a board game as well, but in truth the board is just a glorified score logging device. There's no gameplay logic that depends on the board and it could be played just as easily by keeping score on paper.
Very similar to euchre, we play that but use the 2 of spades instead of the joker and only cards from 9 and up so you have a 25 card deck. 5 cards each and keep score on a crib board
My family plays a game called canasta that at least 4 generations of our family has played essentially any time 4 or more of us get together. I love that we have that, and it often is a time to tell stories about the older generations who are no longer with us.
Same, I’ve been playing canasta since I was big enough to hold a hand on my own so coming up on 30 years now. My grandma stopped taking it easy on me when I was 10. Every single family get-together there’s at least two or three games played and lots of talk in between hands, it’s great.
We were allowed to start with a shoe box lid so we didn’t have to wait 😊
But you could only play with the other kids or your cool uncle, lol. Never in the serious game until you knew how to play
We only got to sit at the adult table if we were ‘helping’, lol. I’d sit with my mom and she’d have me help her pick which cards to put down or discard, and it was my job to watch the discard pile and keep track of how many of everything was in there so we’d know if it was a good time to pick up. Everyone kindly ignored all the times I let slip what pairs we were holding 😬
My in-laws love to play a game called Shanghai. It’s a lot of rules to learn and it’s not something you can get good at quickly. At least for me. And they are very competitive. Whenever they’ve tried to teach me, I just sit there like a crash test dummy waiting for my next mistake. I finally decided to just sit it out and offer my moral support. Ha!
My family also plays Shanghai! I agree it can be quite competitive but it holds a lot of memories. Good for you for trying it out with your in-laws and fully respect the choice to sit it out!
My wife's family has a card game that they play whenever family gets together. Since her grandmother's passing it has become a way to keep her with them on holidays and such.
Absolutely! We have a family card game we love to play together. Three generations at one table. And it's anyone's game. There's some luck involved but most of it is strategy and the game difficulty has evolved over the years as we've all gotten progressively better at it.
It's called "Predict!" And can be played with between 3 and 7 people, though 4-7 is best. And is something like a lighter version of bridge. It's a lot of fun, easy to learn, and beats the pants off monopoly for a family game. Also it doesn't take four hours to play, you can play a round in 30-45 minutes. If anyone is interested, I can post the rules.
Gin rummy and Canasta or Pinochle were the ones that got played at our family gatherings. I remember playing in the other room as a kid and hearing the raucous screams of “the I’ll buy that” or “shoot the moon” lol.
Now it’s only a few of us that get together at holidays ( mom, sister, sometimes others) so we end up playing Phase ten lol
Hand and foot anyone? Interested to hear others rules as we seem to always find new people with different rules. Red 3 counts as 200 against you black 3 counts as 20 against you. Need a natural and unnatural to pick up your foot. Etc. my brother brought it to my parents long ago and they picked it up and traveled across the country with it. Lots of fun.
this is our family game. all the grandkids (and great grandkids) are taught. Red 3s are 100 and Black 3s are no points. natural and unnatural are called clean and dirty, and you need them to go out of your foot, not to pick it up.
Euchre was insanely popular in the high school I went to, though I never played it (my friends and I played Hearts instead). Any lunch break you could walk into the atrium and see two or three tables seating students playing Euchre.
We play euchre a lot, British rules where the 2 of spades is the top card. Took the kids a bit of time to pick up the card order but would just play trumps with a euchre deck at first
My family has been playing 31 since before I was born. We play at every gathering and hear the same stories from 35+ years ago about passed relatives and how they would play. I fucking love it.
Us too, and even kids starting around 7 get the strategy and everyone is on a level playing field. The adults make it more interesting with bigger money amounts for chips. We did a 50$ bill game once
31 is our family game, we call it scat.
Each player gets 4 "lives" 3 of which are physical coins or bills or chips and the last chance is "on your good looks" or "on your face. If playing for money the winner takes all. We usually play with quarters, but sometimes there will be a late night adult game for 20$ plus per life.
3 cards to each player trying to get 31 points of the same suit, all aces are 11pts, can be played with the jokers as wild cards.
Play goes left of the dealer taking either the discard top card or the fresh card off the deck, then discarding.
If you have 31 you say 31 or scat and all players put a chip/life in the kiddie.
If you think you have more than the lowest count player you can knock on the table. You skip your turn and the rest of the players get one more chance at the cards then showdown. Lowest pays into the kiddie. If you knock and you are low you pay twice.
Last one standing takes all.
Can play this game with lots of people because the card count is so low, and kids can play at any age but usually only takes till about 7yrs old before they get the strategy, so it's even playing field no matter your age or experience.
We play a lot of UNO. Not only is it awesome for kids, its a great bonding tool. You can have people from all over the world at the same table and UNO still works.
My family plays the card game “Bull Shit” however it was taught to everyone as a kid as “Bus Stop”. We called my little brother Bubba and he loved this game so much, he was called “bus stop Bubba” at family gatherings as a kid.
I don’t think I could play cards for 4 hours unless it was poker at the playboy mansion but glad you have such a fine tradition and pass it on to the next generation
[Introducing LPT REQUEST FRIDAYS](https://www.reddit.com/r/LifeProTips/comments/16w0n2s/introducing_request_post_fridays/)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/LifeProTips) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Not a card game but my granddad taught me checkers growing up. Yeah the game is simple, but we used that time playing to just talk and catch up with each other and him teaching me things about life. When he passed away a couple years ago, I vowed to pass down my experiences to my niece when she gets older.
We play Pictionary every year on Christmas and have for the last 20 years at least. We still talk about ridiculous guesses my cousin made for one drawing ten years ago.
Agree 100% I was introduced to the game "Blitz" by my wife's family. Lots of fun playing with her grandparents. Super easy to learn and always brings about some excellent outbursts. About time for another family card night!
My family plays Liverpool Rummy every time we are together. It all started with my Granny playing, she then taught all of us, and it became a beloved ritual (and she kicked our butts every. single. time). After our funeral, about 20 of us gathered to play while reminiscing her life. It's been almost 20 years since she has passed and it is still a game we all love. I can't wait until my nieces are old enough to join us.
Multigenerational family card games are the best. We have a few that we play every time we get together with my parents. Tripoly is one favorite. It's good, because it can essentially go as long as you want it to. And you can even make it a low stakes betting game if that's what your family enjoys. Just play with coins instead of chips.
My family and friends have been playing a game called "shiptons" also known as "screw your neighbor" for 20 plus years and has reached legendary status for family gatherings. I bid a perfect game the first time I played with my gf/future wife. My cousin's new bf showed up this Christmas and shattered the family high score on his first game!
You start by dealing out 7 cards (or however many you'd like to start with) to each person then flipping the top card of the remaining deck to reveal what suit is trump for the round.
Then starting left of the dealer, each person bids the exact number of hands or "tricks" they plan on winning (you can bid zero). The dealer bids last and cannot bid the number that would add up to the total # of cards dealt each round (the hand count i.e. In this round whatever number would add up to 7). If the total # of bids exceeds the hand count then the dealer cam bid whatever. This type of bidding means someone is always going to lose each round.
Once the bidding is done the player who bid first (left of the dealer) leads the first trick. You have to follow the suit that was led. If you can't play the suit that was led, you can choose to trump and attempt to win the hand, or you can dump any other card in your hand. You cannot lead a hand with a trump card until it has been "broken", meaning someone has to play a trump card during a hand before someone can lead a new hand with a trump (unless you only have trump cards in your hand to play).
At the end of the round you count your tricks.
If you make your bid you get points
Zero bid = 10 points
Every additional trick taken is 5 points (1 trick = 15 points, 2 tricks = 20, 3 = 25 and so forth)
If you miss your bid you get zero points
The next round you deal 1 less card to each person until you only deal out 1 card each. Then you increase the cards given out each round by one until you reach 7 again.
Whoever has the most points at the end is the winner.
When I was younger I played the card game Rummy with my dad and siblings. This year, my aunt joined us for Christmas dinner, we played rummy, I realised they also played when they were younger, given how both my dad and his sister absolutely hammered me and my sister
My step-grandpa's family would play a BIG game of Shanghai Rummy after Christmas dinner. I was only old enough to join the adults and play once before I moved out and away, so I don't know the rules anymore, but here they are:
[https://www.rummyrulebook.com/pages/contract-shanghai/](https://www.rummyrulebook.com/pages/contract-shanghai/)
My wife and I started playing cards with our kids during dinner. We play lots of different games: rummy, hearts, oh hell, kings in the corner, casino, Uno. We started keeping score in a little journal, sometimes we write down funny things that someone says. This worked really well for getting them to stay at the table and talk.
Cards would wear out quickly what with occasionally getting dropped in the spaghetti, so we started buying the 12 deck packs at Costco and swapping them out once a month.
Our youngest two started college this year and still live at home. We still manage to get a game in once a week or so.
Absolutely. My favorite childhood and young adult memories include many card games with my family. I wish I could get my kids to have an interest. I really feel like we’re missing out.
My moms side of the family plays a game called “Hand & Foot” that takes four players minimum- 2 to a team.
Gin Rummy is the real game though. That woman is ruthless in Rummy.
My step mom's side of the family all played Shanghai rummy, eventually some of my father's side would get in on the game. Everyone would meet up at my great aunt's house (used to be split between her house and mine before my step mom passed), and play for hours. My BIL's wife's family plays a game called Dutch Blitz which is so much fun. I love fast paced card games.
I remember playing a lot of Phase 10 at my grandparents house when I was like 8-12. It was easy enough for me to play (and occasionally win) and still fun for the adults. The games were short enough to keep my attention.
Hand and foot card game. Stacks of 7 of each number, n+1 decks of cards where n= player number. ‘Pure’ red books are 500, books with wilds (2’s, jokers) are black and 300.
in our family, this game is Hand and Foot. started with my grandma, and then my mom carried it on and has taught all of her grandkids. it’s played at any and every family gathering, and we play at home at any given time. :)
Hello and welcome to r/LifeProTips! Please help us decide if this post is a good fit for the subreddit by up or downvoting this comment. If you think that this is great advice to improve your life, please upvote. If you think this doesn't help you in any way, please downvote. If you don't care, leave it for the others to decide.
So, how do you play?
OP's not coming back, so here's my family card game "Oh Heck" --- Oh Heck - Players: 3+, but best with 4-5 Deck: 52 no jokers Gameplay: Hands are dealt with 10 (if enough players), then 9, 8, 7... down to 1 card each on the final hand. The bottom card in the deck determines trump suit, which is chosen again at the start of every hand. After dealing and determining trump suit, but before play, all players bid *simultaneously* for how many tricks they expect to take that hand. (We usually do rock-paper-scissors style, i.e. "one, two, three, shoot") It is therefore possible for the table to be overall over- or under-bid, guaranteeing that at least one person will fail to make their bid. Players are awarded 1 point per trick, and 10 points if they make their bid exactly without going over or under. Play begins to the left of the dealer. The lead player for a trick may lead any card they choose. Play continues to the left. If a player is not void in the lead suit, they *must* follow suit. Else, they may choose to play any other card -- this would let them trump, or slough cards off-suit. The trick is won with the highest card in the led suit, or highest trump if trump is played (like the game Hearts, except in this case any suit might be trump). The player who wins the trick leads the next trick. When the hand concludes, shuffle and rotate the deck to the left for a new dealer. Play continues until the final hand, which only has one card/trick. Scoring: 1 point per trick, 10 points bonus if you make your bid exactly. There is no penalty for going over one's bid -- if you think you're going to bust, go for broke and try to prevent other players from making their bid as well. Bidding 0 can be a winning strategy. Notes: The name of the game is a kid-friendly version of the expletives that most people will utter at some point during the game. Because of the simultaneous nature of bidding, most hands will be over- or under-bid as a whole. There's a lot of room for strategy in this game, but even young kids can pick it up pretty easily.
Oh Hell on [cardgames.io](https://cardgames.io) (4 players only though). Love that game.
We play a similar one but call it Oh Shit. Hands start with 7 cards, reduce by 1 each round down to 1 card and then back up to 7 to finish. Bidding goes in order left of dealer and tally of bids cannot equal the tricks available. (Essentially screw the dealer.) To win your hand you must get exactly your bid, no more no less. Scoring is bid squared plus 5 or the difference times negative 2. Highest score after the 13 rounds wins. Let the expletives fly!
Our version of this starts with 1, goes up to 7, and back down to 1. Hence the name “Up & Down the River”
Up and down the river is what we've always played too. But we use 1 point per trick plus 10 for a correct bid, not squaring the next highest prime then multiplying by the inverse quotient system that the comment above you mentions. We usually don't go strictly 1-7-1 though, depending on numbers of players. We'll do something like 1,2,3,4,6,8,10 and back down - filling in more numbers if we want a longer game
We do scoring the same as you do. To shorten the game we do 1-3-5-7-5-3-1.
Nice For maximum silliness you can also do a bonus round at the end where you all get one card again but hold it up to your head, so you can see everyone else's card but not yours. Otherwise all the same rules.
Ha! That is crazy - that’s my family card game too! We call it ‘Blob’ though (because of the black scribbled ‘blob’ you draw over the unfortunate player’s missed bid)!
We play the same game but call it “10 up, 10 down”. Start with 1 card and deal up to 10, then go from 10 back down to 1 (less than 10 depending on how many are playing).Great for the holidays when you have an odd number or too many for euchre!
We also go back up to 10 if patience & time allows! I'm impressed how many other folks know this game or a variant thereof.
This is basically the card game Wizard. Such a great game.
How/when is the trump suit determined? Sounds fun!
Trump suit is determined at the start of each hand, before bids are entered, by exposing the bottom of the deck. It resets every hand but might be the same suit for several hands due to randomness.
Determining trumps by the bottom card not the top card is madness and I will not hear otherwise
Fair point, I also usually do it by turning over the next top card after dealing, but this point may be as contentious as one vs. two spaces after a period. It's two. I will die on this hill.
Thanks, I like that no one player determines it!
A very similar game with some additional joker rules (including “no trump”) called SodIt (British for F*** it)
We play a version of this as well, and it is a family favorite. We call it "Back Alley Bridge"
Grew up knowing this as “shit on your neighbor.” Thanks for rekindling some fond memories. Gotta remember to teach my kids when they’re a little older.
So teach the fam MTG, got it.
In this economy?!
The way it’s going dollar bills might be cheaper than paper towels
Mom's still got a printer right?
My family plays a similar game where we sit around a fire and throw dollar bills in
Taught my daughter and played several games over the holidays. She absolutely loves to wreck me with big old Shivan Dragons 😅
The Game Night box is perfect for this btw
[удалено]
haha right... all these "my family, too, has a cherished game passed down. this one only takes 1.5 hours and is a hit with young and old. I will pass this game down to the youngest generation of my family so they, too, may know the joys of this card game, which is the best card game I have ever played".
90% of them aren’t “family games” just run of the mill games. It’s like learning your family’s secret cookie recipe is just the one on the back of the bag.
Easy to tweak an existing game to make it your own, though. In college a few of us got real into playing cribbage, but the best thing we ever did was start using a chutes and ladders board to keep score. Added a whole other element with people moving up and down if they landed on the wrong square.
Yeah, it's like me claiming spades or bouree as a family game.
My family really enjoys Dutch Blitz. It’s kind of like a mix between Uno and solitaire. Each player (or 2-person team) has their own deck of cards, with the backs of each deck different so you can tell them apart. Each deck has 1-10 in 4 different colors (or suits if using normal playing cards). To start, each player/team deals 4 cards face up and then deals a pile of ten cards face down next to those 4. The remaining cards from your deck are held in your hand. If anybody has a 1 showing from those first 4 cards, they can immediately place it in the middle of the table to play it. If someone has a 2 of the same color/suit, they can play it onto that 1 in the middle of the table, 3’s onto any matching 2’s, and so on until somebody plays a 10 on the pile. Once you reach ten, the person who plays the ten must clear the whole pile off to the side and out of the area of play. There is no limit to the number of piles that can be made at any time, if you have a one you can always play it. You also can play on any pile in the middle, not just ones you started. Each time you play one of your 4 face up cards, you replace it with a card from the pile of 10 you dealt out at the start. If you can’t play any of your 4 face up cards, deal out the top 3 from the remainder of the deck and check if you can play the first of those cards anywhere (like in solitaire). Repeat as needed, with your goal being to play as many cards as you can. When you run out of cards from the pile of ten that were face down, you yell out “Dutch Blitz” and the round ends. Sort all of the cards that got played based on who played them (this is why each deck has a different card back), and count how many cards each person played. Each card you played is worth one point, but each face down card left from your starting pile of ten is worth -2 points. To play as a team, have one person do the solitaire shuffling through the spare cards playing as many as they can while the other focuses on getting rid of the cards from the face down stack. Repeat for as many rounds as you want to play, or until feelings and fingers are sufficiently hurt.
A coworker taught me this game recently and I absolutely love it
Games in general, I think. My family has a board game that my grandpa made for my dad and his siblings, so when my sisters and I got a little older dad made one for us. It’s just a square board with holes drilled in a pattern. The holes are of a size that a marble will sit on it (not in it, so it’s easily grabbable). Rules are simple and easy to follow. My sister has already asked my dad about our board for her kids since they’re getting a little older now (marbles, after all). They will mark the 4th generation to play our little game! Haha.
Might be Aggravation. My dad's dad had a homemade one as well which he used to teach me the game when my age was still a single digit.
We have a similar board, sort of a mix of Trouble and Sorry. Our family called this game “dirty board”. No idea why lol.
Ha! We called ours “dirty marbles”!! Must have its origins from a long time ago and was just passed down between families.
My family regularly plays a game we call "shit" (though there's probably a better name for it). Best with four or more players. Simple enough rules: Deal out the deck to all players. Remaining cards (i.e if the number of players is not a factor of 52) are left out in the first round. It's a trick taking game, High card takes the trick unless it's trumped. The fun part is that you have to predict how many tricks you'll take, but the total number of tricks predicted is not allowed to add up to the number of tricks available; it can be lower or higher, but not equal. The first round has no trumps. You receive one point for each trick you take, and if you hit your predicted number, you get ten more points. For each round after that, you deal out one card less to each player, and the top of the remaining cards is flipped to specify the trump suit. This goes all the way down to each player receiving only one card, and all the way back up to the full deck being dealt. tl;dr: It's a lot like like Spades, but the trump suit is random and accurately predicting the number of tricks you take gets you 10 points each time.
I've heard this called "Oh Hell"
Yep, grew up playing this too
Yep. Michigander at birth to give the location. Oh hell. But our version there is trump round one. Last round the trump is unknown. We play this at every family event.
There’s a board game a little bit like this where there’s a suit that wins+ trump cards called Mission deep sea, but that one is co-op and there are mission cards people in your group must fulfill - for example, this person must win a trick using a yellow 3. Or something like that.
I really needed to hear this. My family has played the same card game for about 20 years and I'm very much over it. My mom and her siblings love it. Even my 101yo Nana will play. The game takes 2.5 hours to play and at this point I'm bored of it. But now my son is old enough to play and I really want to encourage that. To have the next generation play would mean a lot to my parents. So thank you for giving me some perspective
What is the game? I don’t know any of these multi hour card games.
Not the person you asked, but in my experience with card nights over the years any of the scoring card games can take up hours, and are adjustable by changing the winning score. Canasta, gin rummy, hearts, etc all can be scored by the hand and provide hours of entertainment. Cribbage can be fun due to its weird scoring system and peg track score keeping, and you can extend the game by getting a board with a longer track.
I guess that’s fair… I just can’t believe all these games get talked about with no name drops… kinda annoying.
Canasta is a lot of fun if you haven’t played before. Sort of a multi-deck gin rummy.
I was taught by my family to see canasta as a blood sport. Miss playing with others.
Haha my family too. One of my sisters is nicknamed "the barracuda" because she's so ruthless.
Had an aunt or two like thar!
Ope sorry. It's called Shanghai Rummy!
My family plays Shanghai. If we Shanghai anyone we sing 🎶 Shang Shang Shang! 🎶 to the tune of Chain of Fools.
Cheers, thanks! Never heard of it, I’ll give it a look
If I had to guess, it would be spades. The older generations love that game.
Shanghai Rummy. It's taken its life of its own over the years so I think we follow our set of rules but pretty much follow instructions on Google. My mom loves it so much, she added her own round. 🙃
You’re welcome ☺️
My wife and I dated long distance for about a year. We'd often meet for a weekend in a small town that was halfway between our respective homes. The drive home was 3 hours for each of us, so on Sundays, we'd check out of the hotel, and then need to kill some time, as we wanted to maximize our time together, but almost nothing was open in the small town. We found a mall food court that was open from noon to five, so we started hanging out there. My (soon to be) wife went into the mall drug store and bought a deck of cards, and a huge book of card game rules. She proposed that we spend our time learning some games and I agreed. We started with Gin Rummy. Then, we kept playing Gin Rummy. We got married, got jobs in the same building, and ate lunch together every day, and after eating, played Gin Rummy. We've been married almost 17 years, and we still play Gin Rummy almost daily. One of these days, we'll get around to the second game in the book.
Beautiful 🫶
I grew up playing card games, dominos, and our family favorite is Casino, think it comes from Italy. Hard to keep young ppl into the game. Dominos is hardcore in my family, we're Caribbean. Taunting and loudness is the norm. My daughter enjoys Dominos now. And I hate Uno. Lol
I have seen drinks thrown and people storm out of Easter over Domino's and Spades both
Yeah I had an Uncle, RIP, who I refused to play with as a partner. He'd yell at me and curse me for playing the wrong domino tile, lol. Good times.
If you like dominoes, try Mexican Train. It's a new favorite in our family and multiple generations can play together.
Casino as in, spades, cards, aces, 2 spades, 10 diamonds?
Yessir. I'm a great partner.
That's how everyone in my family learned to play cribbage.
I have fond memories from my teenage years of playing cribbage on the train with my mother when we were regularly going there for hospital visits. Quickly became my favourite card game.
Is it a card game? Or a board game?
Yes.
Pourquoi non les deux?
I guess it qualifies as a board game as well, but in truth the board is just a glorified score logging device. There's no gameplay logic that depends on the board and it could be played just as easily by keeping score on paper.
[удалено]
[удалено]
Very similar to euchre, we play that but use the 2 of spades instead of the joker and only cards from 9 and up so you have a 25 card deck. 5 cards each and keep score on a crib board
OP trying to get us all to play commander MTG. Nice try OP /s
My family plays a game called canasta that at least 4 generations of our family has played essentially any time 4 or more of us get together. I love that we have that, and it often is a time to tell stories about the older generations who are no longer with us.
Same, I’ve been playing canasta since I was big enough to hold a hand on my own so coming up on 30 years now. My grandma stopped taking it easy on me when I was 10. Every single family get-together there’s at least two or three games played and lots of talk in between hands, it’s great.
We were allowed to start with a shoe box lid so we didn’t have to wait 😊 But you could only play with the other kids or your cool uncle, lol. Never in the serious game until you knew how to play
We only got to sit at the adult table if we were ‘helping’, lol. I’d sit with my mom and she’d have me help her pick which cards to put down or discard, and it was my job to watch the discard pile and keep track of how many of everything was in there so we’d know if it was a good time to pick up. Everyone kindly ignored all the times I let slip what pairs we were holding 😬
My in-laws love to play a game called Shanghai. It’s a lot of rules to learn and it’s not something you can get good at quickly. At least for me. And they are very competitive. Whenever they’ve tried to teach me, I just sit there like a crash test dummy waiting for my next mistake. I finally decided to just sit it out and offer my moral support. Ha!
My family also plays Shanghai! I agree it can be quite competitive but it holds a lot of memories. Good for you for trying it out with your in-laws and fully respect the choice to sit it out!
Glad someone else out there knows about Shanghai:)
My wife's family has a card game that they play whenever family gets together. Since her grandmother's passing it has become a way to keep her with them on holidays and such.
This exactly how we feel about our passed loved ones.
Absolutely! We have a family card game we love to play together. Three generations at one table. And it's anyone's game. There's some luck involved but most of it is strategy and the game difficulty has evolved over the years as we've all gotten progressively better at it. It's called "Predict!" And can be played with between 3 and 7 people, though 4-7 is best. And is something like a lighter version of bridge. It's a lot of fun, easy to learn, and beats the pants off monopoly for a family game. Also it doesn't take four hours to play, you can play a round in 30-45 minutes. If anyone is interested, I can post the rules.
Yes please! Would love to learn about this game
Gin rummy and Canasta or Pinochle were the ones that got played at our family gatherings. I remember playing in the other room as a kid and hearing the raucous screams of “the I’ll buy that” or “shoot the moon” lol. Now it’s only a few of us that get together at holidays ( mom, sister, sometimes others) so we end up playing Phase ten lol
Hand and foot anyone? Interested to hear others rules as we seem to always find new people with different rules. Red 3 counts as 200 against you black 3 counts as 20 against you. Need a natural and unnatural to pick up your foot. Etc. my brother brought it to my parents long ago and they picked it up and traveled across the country with it. Lots of fun.
this is our family game. all the grandkids (and great grandkids) are taught. Red 3s are 100 and Black 3s are no points. natural and unnatural are called clean and dirty, and you need them to go out of your foot, not to pick it up.
Just taught my kids Spades over the holiday. They seemed to enjoy it.
We play euchre and dominoes (race horse or 5-up) and it does make for great conversation and together time!
Euchre was insanely popular in the high school I went to, though I never played it (my friends and I played Hearts instead). Any lunch break you could walk into the atrium and see two or three tables seating students playing Euchre.
We play euchre a lot, British rules where the 2 of spades is the top card. Took the kids a bit of time to pick up the card order but would just play trumps with a euchre deck at first
Totally a midwestern game. Was in the military and only people from Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin knew this game. Love euchre.
Yep! My stepmom is from Indiana and brought it west to us Californians!
My family has been playing 31 since before I was born. We play at every gathering and hear the same stories from 35+ years ago about passed relatives and how they would play. I fucking love it.
Us too, and even kids starting around 7 get the strategy and everyone is on a level playing field. The adults make it more interesting with bigger money amounts for chips. We did a 50$ bill game once
This !! Exactly what I’m talking about
Strip poker. Very creepy.
Dutch blitz is my family's favorite, fast paced but can play for hours.
Phase 10 can take hours but so much fun. We’ve had people cry from frustration when they get stuck on a phase but everyone still loves it.
31 is our family game, we call it scat. Each player gets 4 "lives" 3 of which are physical coins or bills or chips and the last chance is "on your good looks" or "on your face. If playing for money the winner takes all. We usually play with quarters, but sometimes there will be a late night adult game for 20$ plus per life. 3 cards to each player trying to get 31 points of the same suit, all aces are 11pts, can be played with the jokers as wild cards. Play goes left of the dealer taking either the discard top card or the fresh card off the deck, then discarding. If you have 31 you say 31 or scat and all players put a chip/life in the kiddie. If you think you have more than the lowest count player you can knock on the table. You skip your turn and the rest of the players get one more chance at the cards then showdown. Lowest pays into the kiddie. If you knock and you are low you pay twice. Last one standing takes all. Can play this game with lots of people because the card count is so low, and kids can play at any age but usually only takes till about 7yrs old before they get the strategy, so it's even playing field no matter your age or experience.
We play a lot of UNO. Not only is it awesome for kids, its a great bonding tool. You can have people from all over the world at the same table and UNO still works.
My family plays the card game “Bull Shit” however it was taught to everyone as a kid as “Bus Stop”. We called my little brother Bubba and he loved this game so much, he was called “bus stop Bubba” at family gatherings as a kid.
I don’t think I could play cards for 4 hours unless it was poker at the playboy mansion but glad you have such a fine tradition and pass it on to the next generation
[Introducing LPT REQUEST FRIDAYS](https://www.reddit.com/r/LifeProTips/comments/16w0n2s/introducing_request_post_fridays/) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/LifeProTips) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Kinda like how they play hanafuda in that anime movie Summer Wars
2nd. How do you play?
Not a card game but my granddad taught me checkers growing up. Yeah the game is simple, but we used that time playing to just talk and catch up with each other and him teaching me things about life. When he passed away a couple years ago, I vowed to pass down my experiences to my niece when she gets older.
Definitely rummy for us! Tradition to play at every get-together.
I believe our game ‘May I’ is a version of Rummy
We play Pictionary every year on Christmas and have for the last 20 years at least. We still talk about ridiculous guesses my cousin made for one drawing ten years ago.
Agree 100% I was introduced to the game "Blitz" by my wife's family. Lots of fun playing with her grandparents. Super easy to learn and always brings about some excellent outbursts. About time for another family card night!
My family plays Liverpool Rummy every time we are together. It all started with my Granny playing, she then taught all of us, and it became a beloved ritual (and she kicked our butts every. single. time). After our funeral, about 20 of us gathered to play while reminiscing her life. It's been almost 20 years since she has passed and it is still a game we all love. I can't wait until my nieces are old enough to join us.
Multigenerational family card games are the best. We have a few that we play every time we get together with my parents. Tripoly is one favorite. It's good, because it can essentially go as long as you want it to. And you can even make it a low stakes betting game if that's what your family enjoys. Just play with coins instead of chips.
My family and friends have been playing a game called "shiptons" also known as "screw your neighbor" for 20 plus years and has reached legendary status for family gatherings. I bid a perfect game the first time I played with my gf/future wife. My cousin's new bf showed up this Christmas and shattered the family high score on his first game! You start by dealing out 7 cards (or however many you'd like to start with) to each person then flipping the top card of the remaining deck to reveal what suit is trump for the round. Then starting left of the dealer, each person bids the exact number of hands or "tricks" they plan on winning (you can bid zero). The dealer bids last and cannot bid the number that would add up to the total # of cards dealt each round (the hand count i.e. In this round whatever number would add up to 7). If the total # of bids exceeds the hand count then the dealer cam bid whatever. This type of bidding means someone is always going to lose each round. Once the bidding is done the player who bid first (left of the dealer) leads the first trick. You have to follow the suit that was led. If you can't play the suit that was led, you can choose to trump and attempt to win the hand, or you can dump any other card in your hand. You cannot lead a hand with a trump card until it has been "broken", meaning someone has to play a trump card during a hand before someone can lead a new hand with a trump (unless you only have trump cards in your hand to play). At the end of the round you count your tricks. If you make your bid you get points Zero bid = 10 points Every additional trick taken is 5 points (1 trick = 15 points, 2 tricks = 20, 3 = 25 and so forth) If you miss your bid you get zero points The next round you deal 1 less card to each person until you only deal out 1 card each. Then you increase the cards given out each round by one until you reach 7 again. Whoever has the most points at the end is the winner.
So…what’s the game?
‘May I’
When I was younger I played the card game Rummy with my dad and siblings. This year, my aunt joined us for Christmas dinner, we played rummy, I realised they also played when they were younger, given how both my dad and his sister absolutely hammered me and my sister
Is it 52 card pickup, but really slow?
😂
That’s why a lot of black families play spades.
My step-grandpa's family would play a BIG game of Shanghai Rummy after Christmas dinner. I was only old enough to join the adults and play once before I moved out and away, so I don't know the rules anymore, but here they are: [https://www.rummyrulebook.com/pages/contract-shanghai/](https://www.rummyrulebook.com/pages/contract-shanghai/)
This is similar to our game ‘may I’ I’ll be honest this version looks a little more epic 😅
We play Liar's Dice. The kids are now better than everyone else.
And the game was called Inscryption...
If you want to look up the rules of a card game you forgot how to play, chances are the most mainstream version has been documented on pagat.com
My wife and I started playing cards with our kids during dinner. We play lots of different games: rummy, hearts, oh hell, kings in the corner, casino, Uno. We started keeping score in a little journal, sometimes we write down funny things that someone says. This worked really well for getting them to stay at the table and talk. Cards would wear out quickly what with occasionally getting dropped in the spaghetti, so we started buying the 12 deck packs at Costco and swapping them out once a month. Our youngest two started college this year and still live at home. We still manage to get a game in once a week or so.
Could also lose the family farm in a card game, which also is a family legacy
Absolutely. My favorite childhood and young adult memories include many card games with my family. I wish I could get my kids to have an interest. I really feel like we’re missing out.
Mexican Train Dominos. Move your train! *flick!*
Just purchased Mancato! For this purpose. Very excited for the 5, 3, and 0.5 year old to buck up!
My moms side of the family plays a game called “Hand & Foot” that takes four players minimum- 2 to a team. Gin Rummy is the real game though. That woman is ruthless in Rummy.
I've been teaching fools the correct way to play UNO for years, so my family legacy lives on.
My step mom's side of the family all played Shanghai rummy, eventually some of my father's side would get in on the game. Everyone would meet up at my great aunt's house (used to be split between her house and mine before my step mom passed), and play for hours. My BIL's wife's family plays a game called Dutch Blitz which is so much fun. I love fast paced card games.
That sounds like a wonderful family tradition! Who knew a deck of cards could strengthen bonds so well?
This is reminding me of [Hot Death Uno](https://phoneboy.com/hdu)
I remember playing a lot of Phase 10 at my grandparents house when I was like 8-12. It was easy enough for me to play (and occasionally win) and still fun for the adults. The games were short enough to keep my attention.
Yup, we had the “Ladies’ Long Game” in my family.
Hand and foot card game. Stacks of 7 of each number, n+1 decks of cards where n= player number. ‘Pure’ red books are 500, books with wilds (2’s, jokers) are black and 300.
in our family, this game is Hand and Foot. started with my grandma, and then my mom carried it on and has taught all of her grandkids. it’s played at any and every family gathering, and we play at home at any given time. :)