Card Games

The Harry Potter trading card game was released in August of 2001 by Wizards of the Coast. This trading card game was based on the very popular series of books written by J. K. Rowling, featuring the young wizard Harry Potter and his experiences at Hogwart’s. The Harry Potter Trading card game was produced between 2001 and 2003, when Wizards of the Coast stopped production. The sets produced in this time included the base set, Quiddich Cup, Diagon Alley, Hogwarts, and Chamber of Secrets.

New players can start playing the Harry Potter trading card game with a starter set. The starter set includes two 40-card decks, a playmat, damage counters, and a rulebook. There are also booster packs available for purchase, each of which contains 11 randomized cards. There are also theme decks that feature preconstructed decks centered around a given theme. Only the Chamber of Secrets release featured these preconstructed theme decks.

The Harry Potter trading card game is an enjoyable, if forgettable, game. There is nothing especially unique about the mechanics of the game. Other trading card games, from Magic: The Gathering to Pokemon to Yu-Gi-Oh all have similar mechanics, and this game offers nothing new to the genre. In fact, some of the most interesting aspects of other trading card games seem to be missing from the Harry Potter trading card game.

The artwork on the Harry Potter trading card game cards is relatively weak, as well. In contrast to the anime-style artwork on Naruto cards or the classic fantasy artwork on Magic: The Gathering cards, the artwork from the Harry Potter trading card game very much resembled artwork from a storybook for much younger children.

Today, you can purchase the Harry Potter trading card game products on the secondary market for a relatively small price. Finding someone else to play with might be a challenge, however. If you really enjoy Harry potter, and if you have a willing friend and $20, you could probably purchase enough Harry Potter trading card game cards to keep you both busy for several weeks. If you would rather play a trading card game that is more current or that is more original, you should choose another trading card game.

Collectible card games have been around for ages, but only recently with the raise of Magic The Gathering and Pokemon have these games achieved the attention of the mainstream market. Due to their rarity these cards are sometimes sought after by collectors, and the number of fans make sure that these cards are truly scarce to find.

It seems like every year a new popular card game comes out, without a doubt Wizards of the Coast is the leading publisher for these amazing collectible cards. In magazine and book stores like Barnes & Noble, you will find literature on collectible card games, often ones that explain each cards value.

A cards value can be determined by a number of things, sometimes because of a misprint, and other times because the publisher only released a certain amount of the card. Once in awhile special prints will be released to promote a special event, for example Wizards of the Coast released a special Pokemon card for the release of it’s movie.

There are a number of great card games out there, which ones are the best you ask? Lets take a look at a few.

*Magic: The Gathering

Released in 1993 and published by Wizards of the coast, this fantasy card game has influenced a whole generation of new card games. Even after numerous spin offs into different media genre’s, this game still exceeds fans wishes by delivering beautiful card artwork and numerous video games.

Magic The Gathering is somewhat like Dungeons & Dragons, because of this many fans of Dungeons & Dragons, are also fans of Magic The Gathering. I would go as far as to say the two are like brother and sister.

*Pokemon Trading Card Game

For some Pokemon mania started off with the Game-boy games, for some it started off with the card game, whichever the case, Pokemon mania as I like to call it was very wide spread. Both Children and adults loved this game, looking back on it is kind of odd since it started back in October 1996.

Hard to believe that since then this game has spun off into a insane number of spin offs, video games, movies, anime, manga, and several card game sets all based on the original game.

Even with the number of spin offs the Pokemon Trading Card Game is almost like a blueprint for other card games like it, Wizards of the Coast was very smart in publishing this game with Nintendo. Pokemon Trading Cards have become somewhat a part of my generations lives, even I remember owning my first Pokemon card.

*Yu-Gi-Oh!

This game is similar to the Pokemon Trading Card Game, only it started out as a manga created by a man named Kazuki Takahashi. Since its release in 1996, it has created its share of spin offs as well, with a hit anime, and of course the trading card game.

Instead of being created by Wizards of the Coast like Pokemon cards and Magic the Gathering, this card game is manufactured by Upper deck. Perhaps it was released too late, but this game never achieved the popularity that Pokemon received.

*Digimon

Again, this game is very similar to the Pokemon Trading Card Game, and has also spawned into a few spin offs. Including a anime series that was featured on the Fox Network, movies, and some very decent video games for several consoles.

I guess what makes games like this popular is that you can collect “monsters” which makes it amazing in the eyes of children. In the end this game couldn’t live up to Pokemon, which greatly effected it’s sales, but that didn’t stop fans all over the world from loving it.

There is no doubt most of us middle aged people have memories of long gone relatives gathered around someone’s kitchen table with a pack of cards. Children were excited and proud to be counted in as players, while the adults were thankful there was an activity to herd us all in. There were no age limitations when playing cards, whether we were all, young and old, playing Rummy, War, Crazy Eights, or Go Fish. The bigger the table, the better the game. The older ones paired up with the smaller tots on the laps to help hold the cards. I can still remember trying to copy the older ones when it was my turn to shuffle the deck.

While board games were fun also, it was hard to get everyone close enough to the board. With cards, people could play in pairs much easier than pairing up with Monopoly or Scrabble. There were no restrictions to the number of people playing. Too many people, you used two decks or paired up. I never learned how to play Solitaire until I was an adult, because there was no such thing as only one player when a deck of cards were around.

Playing cards are the cheapest form of entertainment there is. No game pieces to keep up with, no board to store, no electricity required, no controllers to buy, no batteries to recharge and no worries about carpal tunnel syndrome or vision problems.

We bought games for our children as they were growing up, Nintendo’s, Super Nintendo’s, Mouse Trap, etc, but when the power outages of winter came yearly, the cards were our saving grace to be easily played in front of the fireplace by the light of candles. Summer vacations at the coast, a deck of cards packed were as important as packing your swim trunks.

When elderly relatives come for long visits, they wanted to play cards instead of learning a new board game and forget about explaining Donkey Kong and buttons to jump, run, hop or shoot. Senior centers have Bridge and Canasta games constantly going on, instead of Monopoly or Wii. Young men and older men gather together for poker games, not Scrabble or video war games.

Playing cards are not just about playing a game. There is communication involved. You teach your children how to win and lose with grace and to simply relax and have fun. You can learn a lot about your parents, grandparents, children, in-laws and friends simply by gathering around the table with a deck of cards.

Some of my friends have younger children or teenagers now and they complain about the children addicted to the Playstations or the gameboys. The teens play alone in their rooms all night, only coming out to eat or bathe. There is no communication while Junior is battling the evil forces with frantic pushing of buttons and the parents have no desire to press buttons with them after longs days of work. Road trips involve game boys or Ipods, again no interaction.

At least for the baby boomer generation, card games have stood the test of time. Maybe the go green generations to come will unplug their games and return to the eco friendly card games again for entertainment and hopefully have good memories of card playing when they were growing up.

Card games are sometime that everyone with the most rudimentary maths skills will be able to play. But some games, like Poker and Pontoon, may be a bit too complex or adult for young kids to play so here’s a list of card games that kids under 12 can play.

1)Snap – A popular favorite throughout the years, the game involves the players each having the exact same amount of cards. A player will put down a card and then the next player repeats the process and so on until two cards the same type i.e 10 and 10, Jack and Jack, 2 and 2 etc. Once this occurs it’s a race for the first person to place a hand down on the cards and say ‘Snap’ meaning that they gain the cards. The person who gains all the cards wins.

2)Happy Families – This game involves picture cards rather than numbered cards, usually showing four family members. The point of the game is to get whole families. You ask a player whether they have a certain card. If they do they give it to you and you can ask them or someone else again. If not then they get the opportunity to ask. The game continues until a player gets all his/her cards into family groups. This can also be played with numbered cards, albeit more rarely.

3)Solitare – This game involves the whole deck of cards and one player. The goal of the game is to make four rows of lined up cards in numerical order. There are seven rows to begin with. The first row has one face down card, the second has two and so on until the seventh row. The rest of the cards are put face down beside the rows. You then turn over the first card in each row and attempt to get them into numerical order. They must also all the the same suit i.e hearts, spades etc. If you can’t find any more card combinations then you use the remaining deck to fill in the gaps but you have to take three at a time and you must use the first card in each three first. The game ends when either the player has four complete rows or when they can’t build up and more rows due to obscured cards, incompatible cards etc.

Family card night can provide years of fun. Start when children are old enough to identify colors and shapes and progress through the years to games involving increasing levels of strategy. A game of color concentration with a 2 year old is delightful. Not only did the game provide social interaction and skill building, it provided our children with the skills to be both good losers and good winners after some trial and error of course.

When ever we traveled we never went without a couple decks of cards. We could play on airplanes, in the mini-van on road trips, in hotel rooms and rainy days at the lake. No one ever complained about not having video games or the Internet as long as we had cards with us.

We now have bi-weekly card nights at our house with various friends. If our daughters are around they often join us and actually look forward to hanging out with their parents. It doesn’t matter what we play, everyone comes for the company, good food and lots of laughs.

Toddler games as early as children can identify shapes or characters, a simple memory or concentration game is within their grasp. Most toy stores have some type of memory game, be it colors or maybe Disney characters. Lay the cards face down on a table or on the floor. In turn, each player turns over 2 cards, hoping they match. If they do not match, the cards are returned to face down status and the turn passes to the next player. As more cards are revealed, the player who can remember where the matches are progress rapidly to the win.

The next type of card games to try with young children is Old Maid and Go Fish. You can either purchase decks designed for the game or substitute a regular deck of cards. Just remember to remove all but one queen from a regular deck and designate that queen as the Old Maid. In Old Maid after all cards are dealt to the players, each player draws a card from another player’s hand and lay down a match if one is made. The player left with the Old Maid is the loser. To play Go Fish, seven cards are dealt to each player and the remaining cards are placed face down. Go Fish is also a matching game, but in turn players ask other layers for a specific card to match one in their hand. If the other player does not have that card, the asking player is told to “Go Fish” and draws from the pile. The player who either goes out first (uses all their cards by matching) or the player with the most matches laid is the winner.

Gin Rummy was a favorite for many years. The kids wanted to play that almost every night. As they were ages 9-13 they often played together after school and soon had taught most of their friends how to play. Hearts was a favorite after gin rummy but did not last as long. I strongly recommend keeping a Hoyle Card Games book handy to look up the rules for a new game.

Uno and Skip-bo, which are inexpensive card games that can be purchased in most toy departments, are always crowd pleasers because most people are familiar with the games. Also, neither game involves extensive strategy so they are great games to have for a social card night.

Many card games have come and gone during the last 20 years but the desire to gather around the dining room table with family and friends for a card game has not waned at all.

No other game has been able to successfully corner the market of trading card games better than trading baseball cards. Until the creative minds behind Nintendo created Pokemon. Pokemon translates to pocket monster which is a card game based on a very popular Game Boy video game.

Pokemon was first introduced in 1995 as role playing games on the Game Boy gaming consol. This was later turned into a trading card game after a very high demand of the next great Pokemon item. In 1999 the Pokemon card game was introduced to the United States. This swept the nation by storm creating a “Pokemania,” reaching most generations.

Younger generations tried to collect as many cards as possible by trading with friends and associate on the play ground. It became such a popular phenomenon that most schools began to band students from bringing these cards to school. However, most ignored this rule and would continue to trade in the bathrooms, or after school.

Older generations consumed the cards in large volumes for both children and personal value. Children largely influenced the mass consumption of these cards by having to ask for the money to buy the cards. Still many older people would purchase these cards and hold on to them hoping to make a profit. By letting these cards gain value over time based on rarity many people thought they could make a nice profit.

Aside from just collecting the most attractive quality of Pokemon is playing with them. By having the easy to read values on the cards and simplistic style of the game many found enjoyment in challenging friends to battle. The cards were based on the role playing video game of two opposing members doing battle with their Pokemon or pocket monsters. This gave many people an open opportunity to use their imagination and act out their favorite battles from the video game.

The success of Pokemon has replaced the popularity of baseball trading cards by appealing directly to younger generations. With so many other products under the Pokemon brand the market has been flooded with Pokemon merchandise. Pokemon has found a way to put their name on everything from their trading cards, to media, to coffee mugs. With all of these factors Pokemon is the best card game since its recent existence. There have been many attempts made by others but, no other trading card game has been able to come close to the success of Pokemon the best trading card game.

My how have those days gone and passed us by. Way before Nintendo and Sony Playstation. Long before the advent of cable and satellite television. What ever happened to the days when you passed away long summer days playing your favorite board and card games. All the kids of the neighborhood would gather around and have hours upon hours of fun. The good thing is though alot of them are still around and being played by our own kids and the kids of the next generation.

The first card game that I can ever remember playing is ‘Go Fish’. Any discount store had ‘Go Fish’ cards. I used to like the little illustrations that were on them. ‘Crazy Eights’ was another card game that I used to play alot when I was a youngster. The good thing is that these games are still being played by young kids and are even used as teaching tools for pre-k and kindergarden students.

Then as we got older came the games associated with regular 52 card deck playing cards. ‘Gin Rummy’ was a game that I used to play alot with my grandmother and aunt. I have very fond memories of playing it with them. A game that my grandmother taught me how to play was ‘Spades’. This is the same game that is so popular on Microsoft Windows applications. There was a many Saturday night when I was in underoos watching a table full of my grandmother and her pals playing spades. I still play it to this day and always wished that I could play her. She passed away when I was 7 years old.

Then comes the time when a young card player is introduced to the most famous card game of all time, ‘Poker’. I played alot of 5 card and 7 card poker when I first started to learn how to play. Now I have taken to the all around popular ‘Texas Hold’em’ poker. Texas Hold’em is the most addicting card game around today. It seems like there is a tournament on every block of every city. It has been made even more popular with the ‘World Series of Poker’ that has been made so famous on NBC and ESPN.

These card games will and have stood the test of time because they are so simple to play. The cards never change. With poker so many people play it that you cannot help but pass it on to another generation. That makes you think of the old addage ‘Catch a fish for a man and can eat it for one sitting, but teach him to fish and he will be able to eat for a lifetime’. It’s us card players from the old school who are willing to pass on the pasttime on to the next group of folks who keep the popular card games in such high esteem.

When I think of card games for children, two games come to mind. These are games that have been played for years, and I thoroughly enjoyed them when I was growing up. I intend to share them with my own children as well.

The first game I recommend is Go Fish! This is a very simple games with a few simple rules. Each child is dealt 5 cards, and the rest is considered the “pond.” These cards can either be stacked up, and have the “fisherman” draw the top card, or spread out in a line, much like a river for the players to fish in. Play usually starts with the youngest child, and he/she selects who they want to question. He/She then asks for one card, and if the other child has it in his/her hand, he/she must give it up. If not, the child asking gets to go fishing! Play then goes to the person to the left. The game continues until there are no more cards in the pond. If a player runs out of games, he/she is to draw two from the pond to stay in the game. The player with the most pairs at the end of the game is the winner!

My second (and less favorite of the two) suggestion would be Memory Match. This one is even easier than Go Fish! All 52 cards are shuffled, and laid face down on the table, within reach of all players. Play starts with the youngest child. He/she turns over two cards, and if they are a match, he/she gets to keep the cards, and gets another turn. If they do not match, the player turns the cards back over, and play moves to the player to the left. Play continues until all the cards have been turned over. The player with the most pairs at the end of the game is considered the winner!

There are many card games to play. I think all of them can have their perks but are not meant to please everyone. Cards games for the upcoming teen have to be stimulating and competitive. One card game that teens should play is Tonk. A card game where there are as many as 6 players that are looking for three of a kind or the same suit of numbers. The first person who spreads all of his cards wins. You can also play Tonk elimination style where the last person left with cards loses. Teens can also play spades. Spades is a very addictive game but loads of fun, I speak from experience. Spades involves four people in which there are two set of teams who sit across from each other. Each player has 13 cards and they are trying to play the highest card out of the suit. If a player does not have that suit in their hand then the player is allowed to break suit or as we teens call it, Cut. As u win u rack up books, the team with the most books wins. The last game a teen should play is Ginrummi. Any number of players dealt 7 cards(can be more but they have to have an odd number of cards in their hand) are trying to make matches three of a kind or three cards in order of the same suit. These matches result in points and whomever has the most points at the end wins the game. Gin can be played in elimination style as well. Those are the card games that I recommend teens should play.

One of the best casino card games is a card game called Black Jack. Another name for this card game is twenty-one. This is because you need to get your cards, that are dealt to you, to equal twenty-one. Or you need to get as close as you can. To be the winner you have to have cards that either equal twenty-one or are the one closest to the number twenty-one. This does not usually require having to deal with a lot of cards. Most of the time you only need to be dealt three or four. Sometimes you can split your cards and play two hands. If you have two high scoring cards like jacks, queens, or kings. They are all worth ten points. You may want to split them and play two hands. You may also want to stay and play those two cards. They equal twenty together, and that may be the closest anyone gets to winning.

You are dealt two cards and the house is dealt two cards. You only see your cards. You need to add them up. If you are at the magic number of twenty-one, you stay. If you are close you need to decide to stay or add another card. If you go over twenty-one, you are out. You can see only one card that the house has. At the end of the game you see all the house cards. This is when everyone is done adding cards to each of their piles. Then the house turns around its cards if you are closer to twenty-one, you win. If the house is closer they win. If anyone, including the house goes over, they are out.

This game has been a casino favorite for ever. It is very easy to play. It involves a little amount of cards. It involves a little bit of addition. Anyone can do it. It is a lot of fun, and it is very fast moving. All of this, obviously, contributes to the popularity of this game.

There are a lot of different casino card games, including another favorite, poker. Surely if you ask many people the most frequent answer you will get is the favorite game is black jack.

This game has been around for a long time and will most likely stay around for a long time. Other card games in the casino are a bit more complicated. They have different rules that need to be remembered. With black jack it is pretty black and white.

Black jack is fun and exciting. It also is a very fast paced game. This is why many people enjoy this game too. It moves along a lot quicker than most casino card games. It is relatively easy. This is a best known, and most often best liked, casino card game.