Pairs

Pairs is a simple card game where players are trying to avoid getting a pair of the same card.

The deck is made up of 55 cards and they are numbered 1-10. There are ten tens, nine nines, eight eights and so on, right down to a single one. Players are dealt one card each at the start of the game (face up) and play proceeds through a simple stick-or-twist choice on each players turn – you can choose to twist, and as long as you get a different card, you’re safe. If you get a matching card you now have a pair and the round immediately ends – you keep one of your cards as penalty points. Alternatively you can choose to stick, in which case you immediately end the round but you take the lowest showing card on the table as your penalty points.

As soon as one player hits a predetermined set of points – 21, for instance – the game ends and the player with the fewest points wins.

You can also play variations such as players trying to score the most points in a round, and flipping a matching card knocks that particular player out of the round. Then score points (which are good, in this version) for player position when everyone has either bust or stuck.