Crazy Eights — rules card
Print this page on one sheet, one side only ,
in landscape . Then:
Crease each FOLD line and fold the sheet up like a concertina.
Crease the two FOLD & TEAR edges and tear the spare paper off against the crease.
The top and left edges are the sheet's own — leave them alone.
No scissors, no double-sided printing. 4 panels, 4x1 accordion.
If the print preview shows a tall page, set the
orientation to landscape by hand — some browsers ignore the page setup
this sheet asks for, and the fold marks only line up on a wide sheet.
Crazy Eights
2 to 5 players · one 52-card pack
THE IDEA
• Get rid of every card in your hand. First one
out wins the hand.
• Everybody else counts what they are still
holding, and that is what they score. Low total
wins the match.
PLAYING A CARD
• You may play a card that matches the top of
the pile by SUIT or by RANK. A red seven
goes on any seven, and on any other heart or
diamond.
• An EIGHT may be played on anything at all,
and you then name the suit it stands for.
• Cards you may not play go grey.
• With "Queens skip" on in ⚙️ Settings,
playing a queen makes the next player miss
their turn. With two players that means you go
again. Off by default — normally an eight is
the only card here that does anything special.
WHEN YOU CANNOT GO
• Draw from the stock until you can play —
that is the default, and it is why a hand here
can grow to twenty cards.
• With "draw one" on instead, you take a
single card and the turn passes whether it
helped or not.
• When the stock runs out, the pile is turned
over and shuffled to make a new one —
except the card on top, which stays.
SCORING WHAT IS LEFT
• An eight is 50, because it is the most useful
card in the pack and holding one at the end is
a wasted chance.
• A king, queen, jack or ten is 10. An ace is 1.
Everything else is its own number.
WHAT THE TABLE TELLS YOU
• Every eight is gold, everywhere, always. It is
the one card whose identity matters more than
its suit.
• A hand of twenty cards wraps onto a second
and third row rather than shrinking into slivers,
so every card stays wide enough to tap.
WORDS THIS GAME USES
Shedding game — A game you win by
running out of cards, rather than by taking
tricks or making pairs.
The stock — The face-down pile you draw
from.
The discard pile — The face-up pile you play
onto. Only its top card matters.
A wild card — A card playable on anything.
Here it is the eight, and it also lets you choose
the suit that follows.
Going out — Playing your last card. The hand
stops the instant somebody does.
WHERE THESE CAME FROM
Pagat.com — Crazy Eights. The ancestor of
every commercial shedding game. Public
domain, folk-owned, and played a dozen
ways.
w.richardpringle.com/games/crazy-eights/
▲ FOLD ▼
▲ FOLD ▼
▲ FOLD ▼
FOLD & TEAR