How to Play Goofenspiel

Goofenspiel is a simple card game for 2 or 3 players. It's somewhat unique among card games in that there is no luck involved. The entire game is based around out-thinking the other players. If this sounds interesting to you, read on.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Standard deck of playing cards
• 1 or 2 friends

1. Sort the deck by suits. Shuffle the diamonds and place them face-down in the middle of the table. Each player gets one of the remaining suits as their hand. (Remove the fourth suit if you are only playing with two players).
2. Flip over the top card of the diamond stack. Each player must bid on this card by taking one card from his/her hand and placing it face-down on the table.
3. Once all players have played a card, all players reveal simultaneously. Move the diamond card to the scoring pile of whichever player played the highest card (aces are low), and discard all cards played.
4. If there is a tie for the highest card played, discard the diamond in addition to all other cards played.
5. Repeat steps 2-4 for each of the 13 cards in the diamond stack.
6. Each player totals the diamonds in their scoring pile, counting ace as 1 point, two as 2 points, three as 3 points, and so on, through jack as 11 points, queen as 12 points, and king as 13 points. Whoever has the most points wins.

Tips & Warnings

• If you enjoy Goofenspiel a lot, you may want to keep one deck aside pre-sorted by suit, to make starting faster.
• A game of Goofenspiel doesn't take very long, so people generally play a few at one sitting.