Go Fish

Go Fish

Players	2-10
Age range	Any
Setup time	1 min
Playing time	5-15 minutes
Random chance	Medium
Skill(s) required	Strategy

For other uses, see Go Fish (disambiguation)

Not to be confused with the card game Literature, which is also commonly called "Fish".

Go Fish (also Goldfish or simply Fish) is a simple card game. It is usually played by two to five players, although it can be played with up to ten.

Basic game

Using a standard 52-card deck, five cards are dealt to each player, or seven if there are four or fewer. The remaining card pack is shared between the players, usually sprawled out in a non-orderly pile referenced as the "ocean" or "pool".

The player whose turn it is to play asks another player for his or her cards of a particular rank. For example, "Steve, do you have any threes?" The player who is asking must have at least one card of the rank he asked for in his hand. The recipient of the request must then hand over a card of that rank, if he or she has any. If the recipient of the request has none, he or she tells the player to "go fish," and the player draws a card from the pool and ends his turn. If the player receives the card he or she wanted (through either means), he may take another turn. If the player is now holding a pair of one rank, he may play the cards face up in front of himself.

Play proceeds to the left.

Winning: When one player runs out of cards, or the pool is empty, the game ends. The player with the most piles in front of him or her wins.

Variations

There are a number of variations of these basic rules:

You get a new turn if the call is successful. If your call is unsuccessful and you draw the card that matches the card you needed, you get another turn.

• Players form books of four instead of pairs.
• Players ask for a specific card instead of a rank. A player must still have at least one card of the named rank in order to ask, and must expose that card when asking. This is similar to Happy Families.
• If a player runs out of cards he or she must wait until the game is over and cannot gain any more cards or books.
• If the other players got all their matches and one player has a card left while no more Go-fish cards to draw, he or she loses the game.
• Books are saved by each player face-down. When the main play is finished, a further stage of play starts, with the player who has most books. They may ask another player for a rank that they remember that player has; if correct they win the whole book; if incorrect, play passes to the other player. The winner is the player who eventually has collected a book of every rank.

The winner is the player at the end with the most books. Even if players before them have gone out of cards. If playing after the winner has already been decided the next place is given to the player who has the most books first, not the player that runs out of cards.

Strategy

If, when fishing, a player draws a rank they did not have, they should ask for it on their next turn. Otherwise, they should rotate among the ranks that they already hold. In the more difficult variants, strategy often requires memorizing what cards each player possesses. Unlike many card games, Go Fish is very much dependent on the honor system; lying about the contents of one's hand is difficult to prevent.

Special card decks

Instead of using a standard 52 playing card deck, various speciality decks have been manufactured including the 169 count playing card Kids Classic Go Fish Card Game by U.S. Games Systems, Inc. ISBN 1-57281-308-3, Other specialist card packs which can be used to play Go Fish type games have also been produced including the Safari Pals packs which uses animal characteristics to form the sets.

A game similar to Go Fish exists, called Quartets

See also

• Literature (card game)

External links

• Rules of Card Games: Go Fish