How To Play Common Card Games

If you’re an at-home card player, there are a lot of fun, easy games you can play with a deck of cards.

Card games are not just for Vegas and the elderly: they provide an excellent way to spend some time with friends or family members when it’s too cold outside to do anything else. In addition, these days, where most of us carry around smartphones and laptops in our pockets or purses, many people enjoy a good card game as another reason to get away from screens and back into the social world.

Rules for common card games

So whether you are looking to learn the rules so you can play at an online casino or you are interested in playing at home, here are the rules for the most common card games.

Blackjack

The most well-known card game, Blackjack, is also one of the easiest to learn. It is played with a single deck of cards. It’s one of the games where players are playing against the house and not each other. Each player places a bet before any cards are dealt
The dealer then deals each player two cards face-up and deals themselves one card face-up and one card facedown. If any player is dealt a Blackjack – that is, an ace with any 10, jack, queen, or king – the player wins and receives a payout of 1.5 times that player’s bet.

Now the rest of the players take turns to decide whether to stick with the cards they have or add to the cards they already hold. The idea is to get as close to 21 without going over. Finally, the dealer turns over their hidden card to reveal how close they are to 21. If the dealer’s cards add up to 17 or more, then the result must stand. If it is 16 or below, the dealer must turn over another card until its value is at least 17 and no more than 21.

The house has the advantage in Black Jack as once a bet is paid and collected, it is never returned. Therefore as the player always plays before the dealer, if they go bust, the house will win even if the dealer goes on to bust as well.

When you feel confident about how to play, head on over to slots.lv/casino/table-games/blackjack-games, where you will be able to play blackjack online at the best level. It is a good way to get practice in and put your new-found knowledge to the test.

Gin Rummy

Gin Rummy is a popular two-player card game that is not too difficult to learn. You need either two or four players for this game.

Gin Rummy is a form of rummy that involves drawing cards in combinations or “melds” onto one’s own hand until all the cards have been drawn from a single deck. The aim of the game is to score as many points as possible within the time limit.

Players then increase their scores by laying out sets of cards, also known as “books”.

How to play:

Each player is dealt 10 cards. The deck is then placed face down on the table with the top card being turned over and placed face up. Players take a card from either the stockpile (facedown cards) or from the discard pile (face-up cards).

From their cards, players make up a sequence of at least 3 consecutive cards in the same suit or by grouping cards of the same value into sets of 3 or 4. The player can choose to pick up either the face-up card or the facedown card. They must choose a card to place on the discard pile.

Games end

The overall game ends when a player reaches a pre-agreed score. For example, 100 points. The game can end in a couple of ways.

Knock

If the player’s unmatched cards score less than 10 points, they can choose to end the game with a knock. These unmatched cards are known as deadwood.

The player knocking lays down their grouped cards face up. The opponents now have a chance to lay off any of their deadwood cards. For example, if there are 3 aces, a player can lay off the 4th ace.
The player with the lowest value of deadwood scores the value of their cards and adds this to their total.

Gin

If a player can lay down all of the cards they hold, they win that particular round and gain a bonus of 25 points plus the value of their opponent’s deadwood cards.

There are plenty of card games to try. Solitaire, Poker, Blackjack, and Gin Rummy are the most popular ones. You can find a variety of rules for all of these games in many places online.