👵 Old Maid: card game rules

How to play Old Maid

Goal: Get rid of all your cards in pairs and avoid being left with the single Queen.

Setting up

1. Remove one Queen from the deck and set it aside without showing anyone. Now one Queen has no partner.
2. Deal out all the cards. It's fine if some players have one card more.
3. Everyone lays down all the pairs in their hand (two cards of the same number).

How to play

1. On your turn, draw one card from the hand of the player on your left without seeing it.
2. If it makes a pair with a card in your hand, put the pair down on the table.
3. Then the turn passes to the next player, who draws from their neighbor.
4. A player who runs out of cards happily drops out of the game.
5. Keep going until every pair is down and only one card is left: the lonely Queen.

Who wins

Everyone wins except the player left holding the single Queen. They're the Old Maid for that round.

Tips

• Try to keep a straight face when the Queen is in your hand. That's the whole magic of the game.
• Shuffle your hand after someone draws from you so nobody remembers where the Queen is.

Variations

• Take out a Jack instead of a Queen. All that matters is that one card is left without a partner.