peer2peergames

Crazy Eights

An eight plays on anything and calls for the suit you want; everything else has to match the card on the pile by rank or by suit. When nothing in your hand plays, you draw from the stock until something does. The first to empty a hand scores the cards the others are still holding, and the first to the target wins the match.

Play Crazy Eights Leaderboard

The deal and the stock

  1. Two, three or four players from a standard pack. Two people play each other with no bot at the table; at three or four, an empty seat is filled by the bot and the game is not rated.
  2. Seven cards each at two players, five cards each at three or four. The rest of the pack is the stock, face down, and the top card is turned up to start the pile.
  3. If the card turned up is an eight it goes under the stock and the next card is turned, so the first card of a hand is never an eight.
  4. The player to the dealer's left goes first, and the deal moves left each hand.

Playing a card

  1. On your turn, play a card that matches the top of the pile by rank or by suit: a king on a king, or a heart on a heart.
  2. Or play an eight. An eight can be played on anything, and when you play it you call for a suit: the next player has to play a card of that suit, or another eight.
  3. The suit printed on the eight itself counts for nothing once it is on the pile. Only the suit that was called for matters, until the next card goes down.
  4. You go out when you play your last card, and an eight as your last card still calls for a suit.

When you cannot play

  1. If nothing in your hand plays, you draw from the stock, one card at a time, until you draw one that does, and then you play it. You cannot draw while you hold a card that plays.
  2. When the stock runs out, the pile is shuffled to make a new one, all but its top card, and the game goes on.
  3. If the stock is empty and the pile is a single card, a player with nothing to play passes. With the whole pack in hand between you, somebody always holds an eight, so a hand can never get stuck.

Scoring a hand

  1. When a player goes out, the hand ends and they score the cards the other players are still holding: fifty for an eight, ten for a king, queen or jack, and every other card its number, an ace being one.
  2. Nobody else scores anything in that hand. So an eight kept back too long is fifty points to somebody else.

How a game ends

  1. The target is fifty points a player: a hundred at two, a hundred and fifty at three, two hundred at four. The match ends at the end of the hand in which a total reaches it.
  2. The highest total wins. Equal highest totals share first place and there is no winner.
  3. A resignation or a missed deadline ends the game against that player: their seat finishes last and the others are placed by their totals. Every move has the same deadline, chosen when the table is made.

Worth knowing before you start

  1. This game goes by other names elsewhere. It is Mau-Mau in Germany and Pesten in the Netherlands, though both of those add cards with special powers that this game does not have: here the eight is the only special card.
  2. Hold your eights. An eight played early is a card you will miss when nothing else plays, and an eight in your hand at the end is fifty points to the winner.
  3. Play the suit you hold most of, so that you can follow yourself next turn, and shed the court cards first: a king in your hand costs ten, a two costs two.
  4. Watch what the others draw on. A player who drew rather than follow hearts had no hearts at that moment, which is worth knowing when you call for a suit.
  5. The other players' card counts are always on the table, so there is no need to announce a last card, and nobody can be caught out for forgetting to.

The deal, every draw and every reshuffle come from the seed, which is published when the game ends, so the whole match can be checked afterwards. Nobody ever sees another player's cards or the order of the stock.

Crazy Eights terms

The stock
The face-down cards left after the deal, which you draw from when nothing in your hand plays.
The pile
The face-up cards played so far. Only its top card matters, and only the suit called for when that card is an eight.
To call for a suit
What you do when you play an eight: name the suit the next player has to follow.
To go out
To play your last card, which ends the hand and scores you the cards the others still hold.
To pass
To let your turn go by, which is allowed only when nothing in your hand plays, the stock is empty and the pile is a single card.

Playing it here

  • Against a person or the bot. The bot needs no account and starts at once. To play a person, be rated and keep your games, you need an account: an email address and a password.
  • At your own pace. Every move has a deadline you both see, from one minute to a week. A game can take an evening or it can take a fortnight.
  • Nothing to buy and nothing to win. No stakes, no prizes, no boosts, no undo. The only thing on offer is a place on a leaderboard, and only if you want one.
  • Every game can be checked. Anything decided by chance comes from the game's seed, and the seed is published the moment the game ends, so any finished game can be replayed and verified by anyone. See fair play.