Card games

Today I found a web page with the rules to various kids' card games. You can also find the rules to more complicated games at the same site. Be sure to click on their Commercial Games page for a slew of games with special cards.

I remember playing a very simple but quick game, aptly named Speed, with my best friend as a kid. It was a race to get rid of your cards and went extremely fast, with the result that we spent more time shuffling than actually playing, but we loved that game. The basic idea was that there were two face-up piles on which you could play a higher or lower card (e.g. you could play a 6 or an 8 on a 7, or a king or a 2 on an ace, and the suits were irrelevant). You kept playing up and down on both piles as fast as you could, replenishing your hand of five cards from your own draw pile, until someone had no more cards left and had won the game. So simple, but frenzied and stressful and therefore fun. I also recall that we went through a Canasta phase (though I couldn't tell you a thing about how that's played or what the rules are). Solitaire was also big-- at one time I think I knew 11 different solitaire games.

While I'm at it, I really recommend the card game Set. Kids can beat adults at this one!