Different types of card games

Cards games are perfect mobile toys: small, pocket size, easy to store and ideal when travelling with kids for entertaining them. There are also very well known card games such as poker, rummy, skat or bridge which are more popular among adults. Playing cards is a perfect group entertainment when travelling by car or bus, as evening activity in long winter nights when on skiing vacation or when tanning on the beach. Cards such as tarot cards for future telling, the canasta card game or famous children card games such as Top Trumps are available in most retail toy and game stores and even supermarkets with a diversified range of toy products.

Historic overview

Up to the middle of the 20th century, more than 6000 card games were collected. One of the most popular card games museums is located in the German town Altenburg. It was founded in 1923. It has a very good reputation among collectors and experts in the cards community.

What makes the success of card games?

But what is so fascinating of playing cards? Basically, a set of game cards offer the single player or a group of players different game choices, different rules and different strategies. The target of a card game is to have as quickly as one player can most cards of the game or the least cards of the game, for example when playing mau mau. One strategy can also be to obtain most available points as in Doppelkopf. Although there are standardised rules for card games, it is easy to adapt to individual rules. It is always fun to choose the first person to deal the cards, whose first turn it is to play a card or who should shuffle the cards for the next round. The players’ turns can be clockwise or anti-clockwise.

Card games for one or several persons

Besides group card games, there are also card games for individual players such as the game solitaire or patience. There are games which are popular and well known around the world such as rummy or the bridge card game. However, there are also quite regional card games such as the Bavarian game Schafkopf.

Traditional card games face increased competition by online card games. They can be played in the internet – against the computer software or together with other online players. This community gets bigger and bigger. There are many websites which offer a range of card games mostly for entertainment, but also for serious gambling.