Culture & Cosmos Card Games

How to Play Crazy Eights

If you have any experience playing card games you have probably played the game Crazy 8's, but you might not know it as that name. Crazy 8's is called several different card games, but the premise is the same for most of them. Crazy 8's can be played with two or more players. The object of the game is to
get rid of all the cards in your hand by placing them in the discard pile.

To play the game you use a standard deck of cards. If there are several people playing, you may also use two decks of cards. The dealer deals five cards to each player. If there are only two players the dealer may choose to deal seven cards between themselves and the other player. The rest of the undealt cards is placed face down on a table, the top card of the stack is turned over to show its face or number and forms a discard pile. The player on the dealer's left starts the game and it continues clockwise. Each payer must take a card from the discard pile or the undealt stack of cards.

Legal Moves of the Game:

1. If the top card in the discard stack is not an 8, you can play any card that matches the number or suit of the previous card, for example: if the card on the top of the discard stack is a 10 of diamonds, you can either play any 10 card that you have or any diamond card that you have.

2. An 8 may be played on any card (it is essentially a wild card). The player of the 8 must name a suit that has to be played next. So when a player, plays an 8 they can say that they want diamonds to be the next suit played.

The first player who gets rid of all of their cards wins the game. The other players must count penalty points according to the cards that they are still holding. 50 points for cards with 8's on them, 10 points for picture cards and other cards with numbers are counted as points with their face value, with Aces being 1 point.

Drawing Cards

When playing crazy 8's, you may always use your turn to draw a card., one variation of card draw is to allow a player to dray only if you are unable to play and if you can play you must. Others allow the drawn card to be played automatically if it is a legal play, and others make the player wait until their next turn.
Some players will allow more than one card to be drawn. Some will allow a fixed number of cards (example 4), until you can get a card to play. If you get to your drawn limit for that play and you can not play a card, then you default and move on to the next player.

Variations

Crazy 8's is an easy game to add variations to. If you wanted to try a little different game, you could add more cards to the amount that are dealt at the beginning of the game, or score the cards differently. You can even use a variation of the card game Uno using a king (or some other designated rank) that is played, as the skip card. When this card is thrown the next player in the rotation will lose a turn, the turn passes to the following player. Players can use any designated card, to reverse the direction of making of play, making it go counterclockwise. There is also a variation of crazy 8's that the eight must match the suit of the card, that is being played before you can play it. Or players can use the 8 at any time, but cannot pick the suit, so the next player would have to match the suit of either the 8 or the card before the 8.

Drawing Cards

In the classic l game, players can always use their turn to draw a card. Some people also follower the rule that players may only draw a card if they are unable to play. If a player can play a card, then they must make a play. Some dealers allow the drawn card to be played immediately if it is a legal play.
Some dealers allow more than one card to be drawn by a player, if they must draw. Players may draw 1 card or another fixed number of cards, if you still cannot make a play the turn moves on to the next player. Other dealers will require you to continue drawing until you canmake a play.

Last Card

You must let the other players know when you have just one card left. If you do not tell the other players you have only one card left you must draw extra cards from the stack .