Simple Card Games

Here’s a more detailed explanation of the three card games:

Liar (also known as Cheat or I Doubt It)

Objective: The goal is to get rid of all your cards. Players take turns playing cards face down and making a claim about what they’ve played, but they might lie about the card.

How to Play:

• Setup: You need a standard 52-card deck. Players sit in a circle and each is dealt a set number of cards (typically 5–7 cards each).
• Gameplay: The first player plays a card face down, claiming it’s a specific rank (e.g., “I play a 3”). The next player must play a card of the same rank or lie about it. The next player either believes or challenges the claim.
  • Challenge: If a player challenges and the previous player was lying (the card is not the claimed rank), the liar picks up the entire pile of discarded cards. If the player was telling the truth, the challenger has to pick up the pile.
  • Turn: If no challenge happens, the game continues with the next player, and they play a card face down while claiming its rank.
• Winning: The first player to get rid of all their cards wins the game.

Key Rule: You can lie, but only if it’s your turn to play, and if you get caught, you’ll have to pick up the pile!

 Go Fish

Objective: The goal is to collect the most “books” (sets of 4 cards of the same rank) by asking other players for specific cards.

How to Play:

• Setup: You need a standard 52-card deck. Players are dealt 5–7 cards each (depending on the number of players). The remaining cards are placed in a draw pile in the center.
• Gameplay:
  • On their turn, a player asks another player for a specific rank of card (e.g., “Do you have any threes?”). They must have at least one card of the rank they ask for.
  • If the player being asked has any cards of that rank, they must hand them over. If not, they say “Go Fish,” and the asking player must draw a card from the draw pile.
  • If the asking player gets the card they requested, they get another turn. If they don’t, the turn passes to the next player.
• Winning: The game continues until all the cards have been matched into books. The player with the most books at the end wins.

Key Rule: The primary goal is to get four cards of the same rank to form a book.

Uno

Objective: The goal is to be the first to get rid of all your cards by matching them by color or number to the card on the discard pile.

How to Play:

• Setup: You use a deck of Uno cards, which contains cards in four colors (red, yellow, green, blue), with numbers from 0 to 9 and special action cards (Skip, Reverse, Draw Two, Wild, and Wild Draw Four).
• Gameplay: The game starts with each player being dealt 7 cards. One card is placed face-up on the discard pile to start the game. On their turn, a player must play a card that matches the top card of the discard pile in either color or number.
  • Special Cards: These cards add an extra twist to the game:
    • Skip: The next player’s turn is skipped.
    • Reverse: The order of play reverses.
    • Draw Two: The next player must draw two cards and skip their turn.
    • Wild: The player who plays this card can choose the color that the next player must match.
    • Wild Draw Four: The player who plays this card can choose the color, and the next player must draw four cards and skip their turn (can only be played if the player has no other cards that can match the color).
• Winning: When a player is down to one card, they must shout “Uno!” to alert everyone. If another player catches them before their next turn and they didn’t say “Uno,” they must draw two cards as a penalty. The first player to play all their cards wins.

Key Rule: Players must match a card by color or number, and the special cards can change the flow of the game.