Crazy eights

This is a game for two-plus players, in which the goal is to dispose of cards onto a discard pile by simply matching the previous card’s suit or numbers. Crazy Eights has many variations and alternative names.

You might hear people calling it Swedish Rummy, Switch, Last One, Crates, or Rockaway. In the Netherlands, it’s Pesten; in Switzerland, it’s Tschausepp; in Germany, it’s Mau-Mau.

Some Britons call it Black Jack, but it shouldn’t be confused with Blackjack, the American banking card game.

Getting started with Crazy Eights

This is a fun game with a standard 52-card deck and requires at least two people to play. If there are over five players, you will need two decks for the game to be more fun.

If you are two of you, deal 7 cards each, and if there are more players, 5 cards each. The remaining cards should be placed in the middle of the table in a stack facing down.

How to play the game

Start by turning the top card. The player to the dealer’s left should be the first to play, and turns rotate clockwise.

When it’s a player’s turn, he/she should play cards face up to match the current card in either suit (diamonds, hearts, etc.) or rank. For instance, if the current card is a 5 of the clubs, the player must play either a club or a five.

Here is the catch, all eights are wild, which means that a player can play an eight at any time. Whenever a player plays an eight, he/she must then pick the current suit, be it diamonds, clubs, or spades.

Whenever a player can’t match the current card, he/she must draw from the deck, which goes on until they get a match. Once the deck dries up, players without a match lose their turns.

Winning Crazy Eights

Whoever discards his/her cards first is the winner!

Crazy Eights strategies

When playing Crazy Eights, you can choose to either play the most common suit among your cards or pick a suit that your opponent lacks.

You can tell your opponent’s cards by recalling what suit they last had to draw a card for.

Generally, you should play rank matches before suit matches. However, this will depend on the cards you have.

One play may be much better than the other, depending on the circumstances.

When playing for points, discard the high cards to match a suit.

Alternative ways to play Crazy Eights

It is possible to play Crazy Eights over multiple games by simply tracking the points. Once each game comes to an end, players add up the losers’ remaining cards, and the total points are awarded to the winner.

Each face card (i.e., king, queen, etc.) has a value of 10, the Ace is one point, the 8 is 50 points, and all other cards carry their face value. You better not hang on the eights!

Alternatively, some players agree to continue discarding more than one card if it’s possible on each turn. You should play when the jack skips the turn of the play before you. When there are just two players, the jack allows another turn.

Special cards

Besides the wild Eights, there are other special cards in this game.

The general rules are:

Reversing direction

Whenever a player plays an Ace, the play’s direction changes from clockwise to anticlockwise and vice versa.

The Ace does not affect two-player games.

Skipping turns

When a player drops a Queen, the next player misses his/her turn, and the subsequent one takes a turn.

In two-player games, the Queen grants the same player another turn.

Draw cards

When a player drops a Two, the next player must either play a Two or draw two cards. In such cases, an Eight cannot be played. If several players have played Twos consecutively, the next player should either play a Two or draw two cards for every Two played.

The player collecting penalty cards cannot play them in the same turn. After drawing the penalty cards, the turn moves to the next player, who must continue with any card of the same suit as the Two on top or play an Eight or Two to change the suit.

If any of the special cards is the first card of the game, it’s treated as if the dealer played it. This means that if the top card is an Ace, the play moves in the anticlockwise direction.

When the last card to be played by the winner is a special card, its special effect is ignored. For instance, if the current card is the 10, and the next player has just one card remaining, and it’s 2, the player drops the card and is declared the winner.

The remaining hands are scores as they are, and no one draws in response to the 2.