War Card Game Variations and House Rules

Because War is learned at home rather than from a book, nearly every family plays it a little differently. This page covers the differences you are most likely to run into, including the four house rules you can switch on in our War game (open Settings and look under "For this game"). For the standard game, see the full rules.

One or Three Cards Face Down in a War

This is the big one, and families can be quite firm about it. When two cards tie, how many cards does each player put face down before turning one up?

• One card is the plainest form of the game and our default. A war puts six cards on the table: the two tied cards, one face down each and one face up each.
• Three cards is how many American families play it, laying down one card for each word as they chant "I de-clare war!" and then turning up the fourth. A war is then worth ten cards.

With three cards down, wars carry more cards and more of them are hidden, so a single war can swing the game. Games are also quicker: in our tests, half of all games with three cards down were over within about 180 rounds, against about 340 with one. The catch is that more players run out of cards in the middle of a war, which brings us to the next rule.

Running Out of Cards During a War

When a war starts and one player doesn't have enough cards to finish it, something has to give. There are two common answers:

• You lose. The usual rule and our default. If you can't put down the face-down card(s) and a face-up card, the game is over and the other player wins.
• Turn your last card up. The kinder rule. You put down as many face-down cards as you can spare and turn your very last card face up to fight the war. If you have no cards at all, the tied card you already turned up stays in play as your card.

In our game: choose "Running out of cards in a war" in Settings. If, very rarely, both players are short at the same moment, both use the "last card" way whichever rule you picked. And if both run out completely with the cards still tied, each player takes back their own cards and whoever then holds more wins.

Shuffling Won Cards

At a real table, the cards you win get scooped up in a bit of a jumble before they go under your pile. That small bit of mixing matters. If won cards always went under in exactly the same order, a game of War can fall into a loop, with the same cards meeting each other again and again, and in rare cases it never ends at all. Mathematicians have actually studied this.

Our game mixes each round's winnings with its own numbered shuffle before they go under the pile, the way a scoop does at home. This is switched on by default, and we recommend leaving it on. The shuffle comes from the deal number too, so Replay This Deal still plays out exactly the same.

If you turn it off, the winner's own cards go under first, then the other player's, each in the order they were laid down. Most games still finish, but as a safety net our game calls any game that reaches 5,000 rounds and gives it to the player with more cards.

The Short Game

A full game of War often takes several hundred rounds. The short game is the family solution: agree on a number of rounds, play them, then count the cards. Whoever holds more wins; an even split is a draw. Our game offers 26, 50 or 100 rounds. A round counts once somebody takes the cards, however many wars it took, and the round counter on the table shows how far you have got.

Some families use a timer instead, or stop "when supper's ready." Others play until one player's pile runs out for the first time, or until somebody wins three wars. Any of those works at home; they all share the idea that a game of War shouldn't have to last all evening.

Other Ways to Play

These aren't in our game, but they are fun at the kitchen table.

Peace

The opposite of War: the lower card wins each round. When cards tie, each player deals out cards for the letters of "P-E-A-C-E", five face down, and turns up the sixth. It is a nice change for children who have just learned the ordinary game.

Three-Player War

Deal 17 cards each and set the last card aside. All three players turn up a card and the highest takes all three. If two players tie for highest, only those two fight the war. If all three tie, all three go to war together.

Addition War

Each player turns up two cards and adds them together; the higher total wins all four cards. Count Jacks as 11, Queens as 12, Kings as 13 and Aces as 1, or take the court cards out to keep the sums small. For older children, try subtraction (the bigger difference wins) or multiplication.

Two Decks

Shuffle two decks together for a much longer game with many more wars, since every card now has seven possible twins instead of three. Best saved for a long, rainy afternoon.

Jokers High

Leave the two jokers in the deck. A joker beats everything, including an Ace, and two jokers meeting is a war like any other tie.

Picking Your Rules