How to Play Old Maid

Old Maid is one of the first card games many of us ever learned, often on a rainy afternoon with a grandparent or at the end of a long holiday dinner. It needs no counting, no adding up and no memory, so a five-year-old and a ninety-year-old play it on exactly equal terms. This page explains the rules the way our free online Old Maid game plays them, with examples of every kind of turn so you'll never be unsure what happens next.

What You Need

• Players: two to six or more. Three or four is the most fun. Online you play with one, two or three computer players.
• Cards: one standard 52-card deck with one queen taken out. (Some families add a joker instead; see Rule Variations.)
• Time: five to ten minutes a game. Most people play several in a row.

There's no score sheet and no pencil. The only thing anyone keeps track of is who ended up with the Old Maid last time, and that usually becomes a family joke rather than a number.

The Aim of the Game

Every card in the deck has a partner of the same rank except one: the Old Maid. As the game goes on, players pair up their cards and put them down. You want to run out of cards and be safe. The one player who is left holding the Old Maid at the very end loses. There's no winner as such, just one loser, which is part of what makes the game so good-natured: everyone else is relieved together.

Step 1: Make the Old Maid

Take the queen of clubs out of the deck and put it aside where nobody will use it. Now the deck has 51 cards. Every rank still has four cards, except queens, which have three. Two of those queens will pair with each other, and one will be left without a partner. She is the Old Maid.

Step 2: Deal All the Cards

Shuffle well and deal the cards one at a time, face down, starting with the player on the dealer's left and going around the table. Keep going until the whole deck is dealt. With 51 cards the hands won't always come out even, and that's perfectly fine.

Having a card or two more than someone else makes no real difference. You'll pair most of them away before the first draw.

Step 3: Put Down Your Pairs

Everyone picks up their cards and looks through them. Put down, face up in front of you, every pair you hold. A pair is two cards of the same rank: two 7s, two jacks, two aces. The suits don't matter in the standard game.

• Three of a kind makes one pair. Put two down and keep the third.
• Four of a kind makes two pairs. Put all four down.
• Two queens make a pair like any other rank.

Example

You are dealt 2♠ 5♥ 5♣ 7♦ 9♠ 9♥ 9♦ J♣ Q♥ K♠ K♦ A♣ A♥. You put down the 5s, one pair of 9s, the kings and the aces. That's four pairs. You keep 2♠ 7♦ 9♦ J♣ Q♥: five cards. Notice you hold one queen. She might be the Old Maid, or she might find a partner later. Nobody can tell yet.

After the pairs go down, nobody holds two cards of the same rank. That's why every card you draw from now on can make at most one pair.

Step 4: Take Turns Drawing

The player on the dealer's left goes first. On your turn, the player on your left fans out their cards face down. You choose one and take it, without seeing it first. Then:

• If the new card matches a card you already hold, put the pair down face up.
• If it doesn't match, add it to your hand.

Then it's the turn of the player on your right, and they take a card from you. So the cards travel around the table one way, and the turn travels the same way behind them: whoever just drew is the next one to be drawn from.

Example: a pair

You hold 2♠ 7♦ 9♦ J♣ Q♥. Rose, on your left, holds out six cards and you take the third one. It's the 7♣. You already have the 7♦, so the 7s go down. Now you hold 2♠ 9♦ J♣ Q♥.

Example: no pair

Next time round you take the 4♥ from Rose. You don't have a 4, so it joins your hand: 2♠ 4♥ 9♦ J♣ Q♥. Then June, on your right, takes a card from you. She happens to take your Q♥. If she already holds a queen, she puts the pair down and you now know the other queen is the Old Maid. If she doesn't, the queen simply moves to her hand, and she'll be hoping someone takes it from her.

Step 5: Going Out

When a player has no cards left, they're out, and safe. This can happen two ways:

• You give away your last card. If you hold one card and the player on your right takes it, you're out.
• You pair your last card. If you hold one card and draw its partner, the pair goes down and you're out.

Players who are out are skipped from then on. If the player on your left is out, you draw from the next player round to the left who still has cards. Likewise the turn passes to the next player round to the right who still has cards.

Example: skipping a player

Four people are playing: you, Rose on your left, Walt across the table and June on your right. Rose has gone out. On your turn you take a card from Walt instead. Then June takes from you, Walt takes from June, and the turn comes back to you. Rose just watches and enjoys being safe.

Step 6: The End of the Game

Every card except the Old Maid has a partner, so eventually all the pairs go down. The game ends when only one player still holds cards. That player holds a single card, the Old Maid, and loses the game. In many families the loser is teased as "the Old Maid" until the next game, and then shuffles and deals.

Example: the last two players

Only you and Walt are left. You hold Q♠ 6♥; Walt holds 6♣. It's your turn, so you take Walt's only card, the 6♣, and pair your 6s. Walt is out and you are left with the Q♠. Bad luck: you are the Old Maid this time. If instead it had been Walt's turn, he would have taken one of your two cards, with an even chance of taking the queen.

Turn Order at a Glance

How the Online Game Helps

• Pairs go down automatically, with a plain sentence saying what happened.
• Your hand is kept sorted by rank, and the Old Maid is marked with a label when you hold her.
• When it's your turn, the cards you're drawing from are fanned out in the middle of the table. Tap any one, or press Pick for Me.
• When a computer player takes a card from you, the game shows you which card it took.
• The Hint button tells you anything you can know about where the Old Maid is, and otherwise reminds you that every card is an equal guess.
• Every deal has a number. Replay This Deal shuffles the cards the same way again, and Show All Hands at the end shows what everyone was dealt.

There's no Undo button, on purpose: undoing a draw would let you peek at a face-down card and put it back.

A Few Words on Etiquette

The one skill in Old Maid is keeping a straight face. When someone's fingers hover over the Old Maid, it's very hard not to smile, and children are wonderful at giving themselves away. Part of the fun is watching for it. At home, agree before you start whether you can pick a card up and put it back. Most families say "touch it, take it."

If you enjoy simple, sociable games like this one, try Go Fish, another favorite for playing with children, or move on to Hearts when you're ready for a game with a bit more thinking in it. The strategy guide has the few tips there are, and Rule Variations covers the joker game, color pairs and the old European versions.