Alphabetical Index of Card Games

Traditional multi-player card games for which rules are available from this site are listed below in alphabetical order, together with the number of players and the design and number of cards or tiles needed for each - see further explanation at the end of the page. If you are searching for games for a particular number of players you may prefer to use the Index of Games by Number of Players.

Please note:

There are separate pages for: Commercial games (games requiring a special pack of cards produced by a single manufacturer)

Solitaire / Patience games (games for one player)

Invented games (newly created games and variations contributed by readers) These types of game are generally not listed in the index below. Building this site is a long project. At present the site contains rules for only a minority of the card games that exist. Therefore it is quite likely that the game you want is not yet here. If you already know the game you might consider contributing a description of it to this site. If not, you could try looking it up in a book.

Index of Games

Explanation of symbols

Players

The recommended number of players for each game is given in bold. Other numbers for which the game is possible but may be less satisfactory are give in lighter type. For example "2, 3–7, 8, 9" means best for 3 to 7 players; possible for 2, 8 or 9.

Design

This column indicates the type of cards or tiles needed. See the equipment section of the classified index for further details of the different designs.

Quantity

This column gives the number of cards in the deck, indicates where multiple decks are used, and the number of jokers. Where the game can be played with various sizes or numbers of decks, perhaps depending on the number of players, the possibilities are listed, separated by commas. For example, "2x32" means a double 32-card deck: 64 cards in all with two copies of each card. "52+2J" means a 52-card deck with two jokers. "32, 36" means the game can be played with 32 or 36 cards. "2x52+2J, 3x52+3J" means that the game can be played with two 52-card decks plus two jokers (106 cards) or three 52-card decks plus three 52-card decks plus three jokers (159 cards).