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 — by default you keep drawing until you can play (a host can switch that to “draw one, then pass”).

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. By default a game is a single hand; a host can set up a points race or first-to-N-hands instead. If the stock runs out and nobody can play, the hand ends and the fewest points wins.

Step 5

House rules (off by default)

A host can turn any of these on when setting up the table: 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).