How to play Go Fish?

Table of Contents

The Players
The Pack
The Objective
The Deal
The Play
The Score

What is Go Fish

Go Fish is a simple and classic card game typically played by children and families. It is an ideal game for young players to learn basic card-playing skills, including matching and strategy.

The Players

Go Fish is a 2 to 5 player card game.

The Pack

Go Fish is played with 1 deck of cards.  Each deck has 52-cards, 2 through Ace of each suit.

 

The Objective 

Go Fish is a matching game.  The goal is to win the most books of cards. A book is any set of four numerically or face matching cards, one from each suit. 

The Deal 

Players each draw a card and the player who draws the lowest card is the dealer. 

The dealer deals the cards one at a time, face down, clockwise until players have 7 cards if playing with 2-3 people and 5 cards if playing with 4 or more people. The dealer places the remaining cards in a pile, face down, creating the stock pile.

The Play

The player to the left of the dealer goes first and asks any other player if they have cards of a certain rank.  The rank of the card is the number or face of the card, not the suit. For example, Player A asks "Player B, Do you have any 5s?” The player who is requesting, or “fishing”, must have at least one card of the rank requested in their hand. In this example, Player A must have a 5 in their hand.

If Player B has 5s, Player B must hand over all the 5s in their hand. If Player A gets one or more cards requested, their turn continues, and Player A asks the same or another player for a card. The player can ask for the same card or a different one.

If Player B does not have any 5s, Player B says "Go fish” and Player A draws the top card of the pile and places it in their hand.  If Player A makes a “catch” (draws a card of the rank requested), Player A shows the catch, and Player A’s turn continues.

If a player completes a book, the player places all four cards on the table face up and continues the player’s turn.

If the player goes fishing without making a catch, the player’s turn is over and play continues clockwise.

When a player runs out of cards, the player can draw from the stock pile.  If there are no cards in the stock pile, the player is out of the game.  

The Score

When all 13 books are revealed, the game is over. The winner is the player with the most books.