5 Card Games For Adults That Will Make Your Game Night Epic

Source: TYCHR

Playing card games not only encourages fun and social interaction but also offers many health benefits such as helping exercise the mind, enhancing memory retention, boosting mood, improving hand-eye coordination, and helping to de-stress and unwind. 

I’m sure if you have clicked on this blog and are reading it then you probably already have playing cards somewhere in your home, so let’s get started with some fun card games for adults!

Basics of Playing Card Games 

Standard deck playing cards is the classic 52-deck. Each deck consists of 4 “suits,” each known by a symbol, spades (♠️), hearts (♥️), diamonds (♦️), and clubs (♣️). 

Each suit consists of 13 “ranks”: ace (A), king (K), queen (Q), jack (J), 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, and 2. There is also usually a 53rd card, the joker, and a 54th card, an extra joker, packed with the standard deck.

Dedicated deck playing cards are a non-standard set of cards designed for a specific type of game. For instance, a double pack contains two 52-card packs mixed or a pinochle deck for playing pinochle.

Adult Card Games

Below are a few of the popular deck card games for adults with a short description, to understand fully, get help from your friends who play or read about them in books: 

1. Solitaire

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Let’s begin with a card game that can be played all by yourself without needing any other person. Solitaire games can be played virtually anywhere, and I have personally played this game multiple times on an airplane to pass the time.

The objective of this card game is to organize a shuffled deck of cards into four “foundations” in ascending order from ace to king. You have to create a  “tableau” of 7 piles, beginning from left to right, by placing the first card face-up to make the first pile. 

After this, you will need to deal one card face-down for the next six piles. Repeat this same process, again from left to right, placing one card face-up on the second pile and dealing one card face-down on piles three through seven. 

Keep continuing in this way until pile seven has one card facing up on top of six cards facing down. Foundations are then built by suit and in sequence from ace to king using the face-up cards in the tableau. If you can build up the whole deck of cards onto the foundations, you will win!

2. Crazy Eights

Now let’s move to a card game that you can play with your friends.  In a crazy eight-card game, 5 cards are dealt one at a time, face-down, starting with the player to the dealer’s left.

Place the left cards face-down in the center. Turn the top card over and place it into a separate pile. Now beginning to the dealer’s left, each player must place one card that matches the card showing on the pile, either in suit or in rank.

If one of your friends doesn’t have a matching card to play, they must draw cards from the top of the stack until a play is possible. All eights are wild, which means an eight may be played at any time. 

But, the player has to specify a suit for it, not a number. The next player has to play either a card with the same suit or an eight. In your group, the first player who discards all the cards in their hand wins. If you’re looking for easy card games for adults this one is perfect, because it’s similar to UNO for adults. 

3. Contract Bridge

This game is often played in organized club settings. In case you didn’t know there is even a world bridge tournament. 

Source: Today Online

Contract Bridge is not that easy to learn you may have to play it multiple times before you learn how to play correctly, but it is popular and played by many. The game usually involves 4 players divided into teams of two.

4. Canasta

Canasta can be a perfect game if you are looking for card games for adults.  It is a game of the rummy family and was also very popular during the 1950s. This card game is played in pairs with team players sitting across each other. It utilizes 2 standard decks of cards with jokers. 

The jokers and twos are wild in this game. Players can score points by creating “melds.” A meld is at least 3 or more cards of the same rank. A meld of 7 cards with the same rank is called “canasta.” The first team to reach a total of 5,000 points will win the game. 

5. Pinochle

This card game is a melding and trick-taking game played with 2 teams. The objective of this game is to be the first team to score 150 or more points. Pinochle is played with 48 cards, two sets of 9s through Aces, and the cards are ranked as Aces (high), 10s, Kings, Queens, Jacks, and 9s.