Old Maid
Categories: Card Games For Kids, Multiplayer Games
Introduction to Old Maid
Playing Old Maid is great for younger players and is easy to learn. Old Maid is also known as Cuckoo or Chase the Ace.
The Basics
-Number of players: two or more
-Cards: 51 cards (a standard deck of cards with one Queen removed so an odd Queen becomes the Old Maid)
-Ranking: Ace high, then King down to deuce. Suits are equal.
-Difficulty: Easy
Object of the Game
The object of the game of Old Maid is to get rid of all cards in one’s hand by finding matching pairs. One player will be left with the “Old Maid” (the odd queen), this player is the loser.
How to Play Old Maid
Deal and play move clockwise.
After all the cards are dealt, players should look at their cards and remove any pairs from their hand and put them over to the side. Cards are paired according to rank. Suits are ignored in this game. Once all players have eliminated any pairs from their hands, the dealer starts the game.
The dealer must offer his hand to the player to his left. He does so by turning to his left and fanning out his cards face down in front of that player. That player, in turn, must pull one card from the dealer’s hand—without seeing it—and add it to his own hand. If this card makes a pair, the player who pulled the card removes the pair from his hand and places the cards to the side. If the card does not complete a pair, then the card remains in the hand of the player who pulled the card.
Play then continues to that player’s left. In other words, the player who just pulled a card from the dealer’s hand offers his hand, face down, to the player on his left. That player pulls a card and will either discard a pair the card completes or keeps the pulled card in his hand.
The idea is to get rid of all cards in hand. Once this is done, a player is safe and out of the game.
The play continues until everyone is safe except for one player. That player will be left holding the Old Maid card, which loses the game.