Go Fish
Go Fish is the first card game most people ever learn, and it holds up because the whole game is memory and nerve. Ask for a rank you already hold, and every player at the table now knows you hold it — so the real skill is remembering who asked for what three turns ago and taking the cards off them before they complete the book. Two to six players, hands hidden on each person's own device, which is the part that never worked properly around a real table with small children leaning over.
- Players
- 2–6
- Playing time
- 10 min
- Ages
- 4 to adult
- Books
- Thirteen
How it's played
Everyone holds a small hand of cards. On your turn you ask one other player for a rank — “any sevens?” — and what happens next depends entirely on whether they have one.
The hand size changes with the table. Everything not dealt goes into the pond in the middle.
cards each
Two or three players
31 to 38 left in the pond
cards each
Four, five or six players
22 to 32 left in the pond
One question, three endings
- 1Ask again
They have some
They hand over every card of that rank, not one of them. Three sevens in their hand is three sevens in yours.
- 2Ask again
Go fish — and you catch it
You draw one card from the pond and it is the rank you just asked for. Say so, and carry on.
- 3Turn over
Go fish — and you do not
You keep the card, and it is the next player's turn. This is the only way a turn actually ends.
Two of the three hand the turn straight back to you. A good run in Go Fish is one long turn, not several short ones — which is why the game moves much faster than the number of players suggests.
You can only
ask for what
you already have.
The game checks your hand before it passes the question on. Ask for a rank you are not holding and the move is simply refused — there is no bluffing in this game, because the bluff is not a legal move.
So a question is never only a question. Everyone at the table hears it, and everyone can work backwards from it. You are trading information you cannot help giving for cards you might not get.
What the table learns from one ask
You hold at least one of that rank. You could not have asked otherwise.
Either they had some — and everyone saw how many crossed the table — or they had none at all.
Fishing the card up and carrying on tells the table you have two of them now, and that is halfway to a book.
Which is the whole game. Small children play it on luck and remember nothing; everybody else is quietly keeping a list.
Thirteen books and the pack is gone
Four of a rank is a book. It leaves your hand the moment it completes — you never sit holding a finished set — and there are only ever thirteen of them to be had.
Thirteen books of four — fifty-two cards, and nothing left over. Every one of them will be found before the game ends.
They lift themselves out
The moment a fourth card lands, the set leaves your hand and goes down in front of you. There is nothing to declare and nothing to forget.
An empty hand is not out
Lose your last card and you draw a fresh one from the pond and keep playing. Only when the pond is empty too are you passed over.
Most books wins
It finishes when all thirteen are made — or when the pond and every hand are empty at once. There is no score beyond how many books you have.