Crazy Eights Rules

Crazy Eights is a fast card game for two or more players. You get rid of your cards by matching the suit or the rank of the last card played, and every 8 is wild. It is the best-known American member of a large family of games that includes Switch in Britain, Mau-Mau in Germany and the commercial game Uno. All you need is a standard pack of cards, and you can learn it in a couple of minutes. This guide covers the Crazy Eights rules step by step, scoring, the special cards most groups add, Crazy Eights Countdown and a strategy that tested well in simulated games.

Crazy Eights Rules at a Glance

How to Play Crazy Eights

1. Deal. Shuffle and deal five cards to each player one at a time, or seven each in a two-player game. Put the rest of the pack face down in the middle as the stock.
2. Turn up the starter. Turn the top card of the stock face up beside it to start the discard pile. If it is an 8, one common rule is to bury it in the middle of the stock and turn the next card. Some players instead treat it as if the dealer had played it, so the dealer calls a suit.
3. Match the top card. Starting with the player on the dealer’s left and going clockwise, each player plays one card face up on the discard pile. It must match the top card in suit or rank. If the Queen of clubs is showing, you can play any club or any Queen.
4. Eights are wild. You can play an 8 on any card at any time in your turn. When you do, you call a suit (never a rank). The next player must play a card of that suit or another 8.
5. Draw if you can’t play. If you have no card that fits, draw from the stock until you get one you can play, then play it. You are also allowed to draw instead of playing, even if you hold a card that fits.
6. When the stock runs out, keep the top card of the discard pile, shuffle the rest and turn it face down as a new stock. If there is nothing left to draw and you still can’t play, you pass.
7. Say “last card”. When you are down to one card, warn the table. In many groups, if the next player takes their turn before you say it, you draw two cards as a penalty.
8. Go out. The first player to play their last card wins the hand, and the others score penalty points for the cards they still hold.

Drawing: The Two Common Rules

Card books disagree about what happens when you can’t play, so settle it before the first deal:

• Draw until you can play. You keep drawing until a card fits, then play it. If the stock runs out first, you pass.
• Draw one card. Drawing takes your whole turn, and play passes to the next player. Some groups let you play the drawn card straight away if it fits; others allow a set number of draws before you pass.

Some groups also say that if you can play, you must; drawing by choice is not allowed.

Crazy Eights Scoring

When a player goes out, every other player counts the cards left in their hand and the winner scores the total:

A common target is 50 points per player: 100 for two players, 150 for three, 200 for four and so on. The first to reach it wins the game. Other groups score it as penalty points instead: each player is charged the value of the cards left in their own hand. If the stock is used up and nobody can play, the hand is blocked. The player with the lowest count then scores the difference between their hand and each other hand. Holding an 8 at the end costs 50, which is why it pays to time your eights well.

Special Cards: Queens, Aces and Twos

Most groups play with a few extra action cards. The most common set is:

A few details make the 2s work. You can’t answer a 2 with an 8. After drawing the penalty cards, you can’t play in that same turn; play moves on, and the next player continues on the suit of the last 2, with another 2, or with an 8. If an action card is turned up as the starter, treat it as if the dealer had played it. If your last card is an action card, its effect is ignored and the hand simply ends.

Crazy Eights Variations

Card writer David Parlett calls Crazy Eights “not so much a game as a basic pattern of play on which a wide variety of changes can be rung”. Before you start, check which of these house rules your table uses:

Crazy Eights Countdown

A popular North American version. Everyone starts with a score of 8 and is dealt eight cards. Going out does not end the hand. Instead, you take 1 off your score and are dealt a new hand of that many cards, while everyone else plays on. Your score is also your wild card, so after going out once your 7s are wild, then your 6s, and so on down to Aces. When you call a suit with your wild card, the next player must follow that suit or play their own wild card. Some groups also let them answer with a card of the same rank as the wild card just played; this rule causes more arguments than any other, so agree it before you start. The first player to reach zero wins.

Other Names and Related Games

The game goes by many names: Crates, Swedish Rummy, Last One, Rockaway and, in parts of Britain, “Black Jack”, which is easy to confuse with the casino game of blackjack. It is Mau-Mau in Germany, Tschausepp in Switzerland, Pesten in the Netherlands and Ocho Locos in Puerto Rico.

The game first appeared as Eights in the 1930s. The name Crazy Eights dates from the 1940s and is usually traced to “Section 8”, the US military discharge for soldiers judged mentally unfit. Uno, the best-known boxed version, is Crazy Eights played with a special deck.

Crazy Eights Strategy

• Save your eights. An 8 can always be played, so it is your way out of a hand with no matching cards. Play one only when nothing else fits, or when it wins the hand.
• Switch to your long suit. When you have a choice, play the card that leaves the top of the pile in the suit you hold most of. When you play an 8, call that suit too.
• Shed high cards early. Pictures and 10s cost 10 points each if someone goes out, so get rid of them first when the choice is otherwise even.
• Watch what others draw on. A player who draws on a suit is probably short of it. Turn the pile to that suit when you can.

In about 30,000 simulated four-player games, a player who saved their eights and switched to their longest suit won 30% of the time against three players choosing their cards at random, against a fair share of 25%. Most of that edge comes from the eights: when the same player threw an 8 at the first chance, the win rate dropped back to 25%. With two players, saving eights won 57% of games against random play.

Crazy Eights Odds

• Stuck on the first turn. Against a starter that is not an 8, 18 of the 51 unseen cards can be played. With five cards you have none of them 10% of the time; with seven cards, 4%.
• Holding an 8. You are dealt at least one 8 34% of the time with five cards and 45% with seven.
• Playing first helps a little. With four players and random play, the player on the dealer’s left went out first 27% of the time. Passing the deal round evens it out.
• Game length. A four-player hand took about 45 turns, the stock ran out and had to be reshuffled in 38% of hands, and each losing hand was caught with about 30 points.

More Card Games

If you like Crazy Eights, try Switch, its British cousin, or Shithead, Sevens, President, Go Fish and Old Maid.

The British cousin: Black Jack, the 7-card game where a Black Jack means picking up five.

An easy family card game: Golf, six cards each and a race for the lowest score.

For four players who like tricks: Hearts, where the lowest score wins.

Another family card game to try: Kings Corner, where you build down in red and black and Kings start the corners.

Another race to empty your hand: Phase 10, where you complete ten Phases in order.

Crazy Eights: frequently asked questions