The rulebook
How to play Crazy Eights
A standard 52-card deck, one goal: be the first to shed every card in your hand. Match the pile, play your eights when it counts, and don't get caught holding the big ones.
Step 1
The deal
Everyone gets seven cards heads-up, or five with three or more players. One card is flipped face-up to start the discard pile; the rest is the stock you draw from. Play moves to the dealer's left.
Step 2
Your turn
Play one card that matches the top of the discard by suit or rank. Can't match? Draw from the stock — you keep drawing until you can play.
Step 3
Eights are wild
An 8 can be played on anything, any time — and when you do, you name the next suit. Everyone then has to match that suit (or the rank 8, or play their own eight) until someone changes it again.
Step 4
Winning
Play your last card and the hand's over — you can even go out on an eight. Everyone else's leftover cards score against them: an 8 is 50, face cards 10, an ace 1, everything else its face value. Lowest score wins. This match is scored single hand — winner takes the game. If the stock runs out and nobody can play, the hand ends and the fewest points wins.
Step 5
House rules (off)
None of the action-card variants are on. A host can turn any of them on when setting up the game: Twos make the next player draw two (and they can stack their own two to pass it along), Queens skip the next player, and Aces reverse the direction of play (heads-up, a reverse just skips).