How to play Old Maid (Card Game)

Learn the rules to the card game Old Maid quickly and concisely - This visually rich video has no distractions, just the rules.

Don't own the game?
(As an Amazon Affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases)

RULES:

The object of the game is to not be the player at the end of the game holding the joker. Setup: Shuffle a standard deck of playing cards with 1 joker and deal all the cards evenly to each player. Players look at their own cards but keep them hidden from others. Players sort through their cards, making as many pairs as possible, and placing these pairs face-up on the table in front of them.

The dealer goes first, then play proceeds clockwise. On your turn, fan out your cards, making sure no one else can see them. The player to your left pick one of your cards. As players make pairs in their hand, they discard them faceup to the table immediately.

Once it is impossible to make more pairs, the game ends and the player with the joker, the old maid, loses.

[crookedsmile]

Thank you. This is one of the few carfax games I've never played and never knew anyone who played to teach me

[LoriSimpsonVideos]

This sounds simple, straight forward and fun enough. I live in a nursing home and just made a new friend who likes to play games but we need to stick with very easy stuff for certain reasons. I think we can both handle this, maybe. I'll bring it up to her and see if she wants to give it a shot!

[LittleLuckyRaindrop]

Thank you! This was super helpful. I can't wait to play it with my friends!

[RainMakeR_Workshop]

I’m more familiar with the version with a queen being the old maid card

[timothygiese]

Here's a gameplay twist for you to try. Take both jokers out of the deck. Shuffle the deck thoroughly. While the deck is face down, discard a card from the deck. It will remain face down and out of the game. Deal the cards, and play as normal.

[aipa]

I played the game with a twist.
The twist is playing the game with 3 queens with 2 queens being able to be paired.
Another ending: if you have the last pair, you lose.

[harm]

Here in the Netherlands, we have a similar game called ‘zwartepieten’. It’s with all the cards with value 7 or higher, except for the jack of clubs. The player who has the jack of spades at the end loses

[va]

I played this before- but when we play, we just remove one card from the deck

[angelajordan]

Thanks for keeping it short and sweet!

[jaykay]

New rule idea: Double Maid! Use 2 jokers instead of 1. Same rules as Normal, except once you made all the pairs you can, trade your pairs with your opponents. If you have the most pairs you win, but if you have the pair of jokers in first place you instantly lose and the second place player wins. Simple, but there’s a catch, if the person with the least pairs has the pair of jokers, they win no matter how many pairs the leading player(s) have.

[Dhorannis]

There is a very similar game in Germany called "Schwarzer Peter" (lit. Black Peter, which might have some slightly racist undertones tbh).
The difference is that you don't use a joker, but instead remove the jack of spades from the deck. Also, you can only form pairs with cards that have a matching colour (e.g. queen of hearts and queen of diamonds). The one who has the jack of clubs in the end loses.

[J-Excel]

This is what I want to learn right now!

[some]

I play this game with my friends but its a bit different. The only difference is there is no joker, and the king is the old maid card. We take 3 kings from the deck and play with 1 king whoever has the king in his hand at the end loses

[GreggoryL]

Oh, Bulgaria actually has a game like that! The only difference is that we call it "черен Петър" or "black Peter"!

[lmcc]

How do you deal them evenly if you add the joker? Wouldn’t you have to remove a card?

[niconixx]

In the Philippines (idk if this was with my family or with the whole country) we have this game called “unggoy-unggoy” where we shuffle a 52-card deck and remove one card and with the same rules as old maid and whoever has the last card loses

[vijaysrini]

We have also played this. But we don't play with Joker. Instead, we discard *ONE* card from the entire deck, and that card is not used for the rest of the game.
The player who finishes his cards first wins, and the player who has a card left loses. And the face value of card turns out to be the same as face value of the discarded card.

[poonamdhurve]

Awesome explanation. Short and simple 😊

[gautam]

Do you know that game with 1 detective 1killer 2 or more common people where killer kills common people and detective has to catch him?

[calvinong]

A way to play this is to remove the top card on a shuffled deck so that the card without a pair is random.