Download Card Games
The descriptions below are from pagat.com.
Fishing card games
In fishing games each player has a hand of cards and there is a layout of face up cards on the table. Each player in turn plays a card. If
it matches a card or cards in the layout, the played card and the matched cards are captured and placed face down in front of the player. If the card played does not match it is added to the
layout.
Plain trick taking games
In these games the value of a trick does not depend on what cards it contains. The object will typically be to win some number of tricks, or as
many tricks as possible. Occasionally the object is to win a specific trick (for example the last one). There are also some plain trick games where the aim is to lose tricks.
Point trick games are so called because the cards have point values, and the result is determined not by the number of tricks taken, but by the total point value of cards taken. There are positive point trick games, in which the object is to take at least a certain number of points in tricks (or more than the other players), negative point trick games in which you try to avoid taking points, and a small number of games with other objectives such as getting as near as possible to a predicted total.
In matching games players take turns to play cards to a discard pile or to a layout. The card played must match the previous card or fit in with the other cards in some way depending on the particular game (same rank or suit, next higher rank, etc). A player who cannot play may be penalized by having to draw one or more cards from an undealt stock. The object is usually to get rid of all your cards.Here you will find the adding games too. In adding games, in which the values of the cards are added together as they played in a single pile, the object being to avoid taking the total above the target score (98, 99 commonly).
Draw and discard / Commerce games
In draw and discard card games, each player has a hand of cards and in the center of the table is a stock of face-down cards and a face-up discard pile. At the start of your turn you draw an
(unknown) card from the stock or a (known) card from the discard pile (in some games you may be able to draw more than one card). You end your turn by discarding a card face up on top of the
discard pile. In this way you try to improve your hand towards some objective. This is the game family that includes the rummy-type games.
Also, in this page, you may find games that share a similar mechanism, like the commerce games, in which you improve your hand by exchanging cards with a central pool of face-up cards.
Some of the games included here are mixed games which are chiefly point trick games, but other mechanisms are also used.
In climbing games, each player in turn must play a higher card (or combination of cards) than the previous player. A player who cannot or does not wish to beat the previous play can pass. This continues for as many rounds as necessary until someone makes a play which no one will beat. That player wins the "trick" and leads to another one. Because players can pass, their cards are not used at an equal rate and some will run out before others. Often the aim is to get rid of cards, but sometimes it may be to win cards in "tricks".
Here you will find also the related beating games, in which when a player is unable to play a card, she does not simply pass, but she has to take a number of pile cards or even the whole pile.
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