The rulebook
How to play Go Fish
Ask around for the ranks you're holding, land all four suits to make a book, and take the most books of the thirteen in the deck.
Step 1
The deal
One standard 52-card deck. Everyone gets seven cards with two or three players, five from four players up — the rest goes face-down in the middle as the ocean. If four of a kind lands in your opening hand, it goes straight down as a book.
Step 2
Your turn: ask someone
Name a player and a rank — “Sam, got any Kings?” You may only ask for a rank you are already holding, which is what makes the game a memory contest rather than a guessing one. You also can't ask a player who has run out of cards.
Step 3
A hit
If they have any, they hand over everycard of that rank — not just one. By default a hit keeps the turn with you, so a good read can run several asks together.
Step 4
Go Fish
If they have none, they say Go Fishand you draw one card from the ocean. Draw the very rank you asked for and you've earned another turn; otherwise play passes to your left.
Step 5
Books
Collect all four suits of a rank and it goes face-up on the table as a book. Books are public — everyone can see who has landed what, and they're what the game is scored on. Thirteen books make a whole deck.
Step 6
Running dry, and the ending
Empty your hand while the ocean still has cards and you draw back in. The game ends when all thirteen books are down — or earlier, if the ocean is empty and no two players hold a rank in common, because from there no card can ever change hands again. Most books wins; a tie splits it.
Step 7
What this table fixes
Two rules other printings vary are settled here and not offered as options: you must hold a rank to ask for it, and after a Go Fish play passes to your left(some rulebooks pass it to whoever said Go Fish). Everything else — hand size, whether a hit or a lucky draw earns another turn, whether an emptied hand refills — is a house rule you set when the game is dealt.