You pair up the Queens, 10s, and Jacks while the other players do the same to their cards. Suppose the cards have been dealt and you have three Queens, an Ace, 9, two 10s, 2, 3, 8, and two Jacks. The player who has it at the end of the game becomes the Old Maid and loses. Players can “Go Out” and be safe from becoming the Old Maid in two ways: they can pair up all of their cards or the player to their left takes their last card for the draw.īecause one of the Queens was removed, there will always be an unpaired Queen. The player left of the dealer then offers their hand faced down to the player to their left and gameplay proceeds as before. If they cannot, the card remains in their deck. If they can, the pair is added to their pile of pairs. The player left of the dealer tries to make another pair with this new card. The player left of the dealer then chooses one random card from the other players hand and add it to their own. The dealer then holds out their hand facing down (so that no one can see the cards) towards the player to their left. How to PlayĪfter everybody receives their cards, players make any pairs they can with their hand and place them facing down on the table. The dealer then passes all of the cards one by one clockwise to each player. The dealer then shuffles the deck and the player to their right cuts it. The dealer first removes one Queen from the deck in order to designate the “Old Maid”. For the dealer process Aces are high and 2s are low.

To do so, every player is given a card from a shuffled deck and who ever receives the highest card becomes the first dealer.

Set Upīefore the game begins an initial dealer must be chosen. If you are looking for cards to play Old Maid with, check out a standard pack here or one of our specialty Old Maid packs here. The objective of the game is to pair up all of your cards and to avoid having the odd Queen out by the end of the game.įor more classic card games, check out our guides for Go Fish and Solitaire. Old Maid is a card matching game played with 2 or more players and a standard 52 playing card deck. (After removing one Queen from the deck, the odd Queen out is considered the Old Maid) Card Game Rules

Antique old maid playing card