Card Game Rules for Educational Learing Resources

"Declare War"

"Spades"

“I Declare War”

# of players: 2-4

Object of the Game:

Win the most cards

Card Hierarchy

(Highest ) Ace, King, Queen, Jack,10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2 (Lowest)

Instructions:

Remove both Jokers.
Shuffle and deal until all the cards are distributed.
Each player’s deck should sit face down.
All players should show their top card at the same time.
The player with the highest card will win that round and collect that set of cards.
If two players show cards with the same value, then a round of “Declare War” must be played.
Players in a war round must take three cards and place them face down from the top of their decks. A fourth card should be taken from the deck and placed face up.
The highest value card wins and that player may take all of the cards used in the declare war round, as well as the cards that created the “Declare War” round.
The game can be played in at least two different ways
(Short Game) Play each round as usual; however, keep the cards won from others in a separate pile. After the last round, determine a winner by picking the player with the most cards.
(Long Game) Play each round as usual, but add the cards won from each round to the bottom of your face down deck. Play until one player has all of the cards.

“Spades” (Strings)

# of players: 4

Object of the Game:
Score 500 points by bidding and making books

Books: a set a four cards, one from each player. The highest ranking card wins the books
If a team bids 4 books and wins those four books, the score is marked as 40 points. If the team makes more than four books, any additional books are counted as single digits (ex. If a team scores 6 books but only bids 4, are score of 42 will be given rather than 60).

Card Hierarchy

In this game, Spades (Strings) are trump cards. Even the lowest String (for example 3 of string) will beat an Ace or lower from any other card suit.

Spades: Highest to lowest: Big Joker, Little Joker, Deuce (2 of Spades/Strings), Ace, King, Queen, Jack, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2- all other cards: Ace, King, Queen, Jack, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2

Instructions:

Deal all cards until each player has 13 cards.

Each player must determine how many books they believe they can obtain using high ranking cards from their hand (ex. Ace, Kings, and most of the spades/ string cards).

Once this is done, partners will determine (Bid) how many books their team will attempt to make.

After bids for books are made, playing may begin by, having the person after the dealer (clockwise) play any card.

See the examples below. The musical equations have been replaced with numbers in these examples for explanatory purposes only.

Variation:

Removal of
2 of diamonds and 2 of hearts

In spades/strings example 1, all players have played a card from the woodwind family; however, player 4 wins this round because the Ace is the highest ranking in this group of four cards.

In the next example,spades/strings 2, player 2 is the winner. This time, all of the players play cards from the brass family. Player 2 wins by playing a king of brass card, which out ranks the other brass cards played in this particular round.

Finally, in example 3, player 3 wins by playing a four of strings card (...remember that spades/strings cards in this game out rank all other cards).