Go Fish Rules

Collect four of a kind (all four Jacks, all four sevens) by asking the other players for the cards you need. Four of a kind is a catch, and you lay it face up in front of you as soon as it completes.

There are thirteen catches in a deck, one for each rank. The game ends when all thirteen are made, and whoever has the most wins it.

• The game is for two to six players. Whoever starts the table picks how many seats it has, and a new table comes up on four. Any seat nobody takes is played by the computer.
• The deal is five cards each at four or more players, and seven each at two or three.
• The rest of the deck goes face down in the middle. This page calls it the pool; you may have grown up calling it the ocean or the stock. Same pile.
• A catch you're dealt counts. If four of a kind turns up in your opening hand, you lay it down yourself once the deal is on the table, before anybody asks for anything. If two players are dealt one, they lay them one at a time, starting from the dealer.

A turn is one ask. You name a player and a rank:

• You must already hold at least one card of the rank you ask for. You can't fish for a rank you have none of, and that's what makes the game a game of memory rather than luck.
• You can't ask yourself, and you can't ask a player who has no cards. The table will refuse and tell you why.

Then one of two things happens:

• They have some. They hand over every card of that rank (not one, all of them) and you go again.
• They have none. "Go fish." You draw one card from the pool. If it happens to be the rank you just asked for, you go again. Otherwise the turn passes to your left.

Any time four of a kind comes together in your hand, from an ask, from a draw, at the deal, you lay it down face up straight away: drag one of the four to your Catches and the other three follow. You don't get to hold a catch back, and nobody can ask until it's down. If you leave it sitting there, the table lays it for you after a short wait.

The moment your hand empties you draw one card from the pool: one, not a fresh hand, and you draw it immediately, as part of whatever just emptied your hand, not at the start of your next turn.

If the pool is empty too, you're out of the asking. You can't ask and nobody can ask you. You keep every catch you've already made, and they still count at the end, because being out of cards is not being out of the game.

When the thirteenth catch goes down, the game is over. Most catches wins.

Level on catches? It comes down to what you caught. Each catch is worth points by its rank, the same way you'd size up a catch while out fishing:

Catch	Points
2 through 10	Face value, so a catch of 5's is worth 5
Jack	11
Queen	12
King	13
Ace	14, the one catch worth more than a King

Add up the points of every catch you made and that's your tiebreak score. Most catches wins outright. If two or more players are level on catches, the higher tiebreak score wins. Only if you're level on both catches and score do you genuinely share the win. There's still no tiebreak on who caught first, because no traditional telling of the game gives one and inventing one here would be making up a rule nobody plays by.

Worked example: you finish with catches of 5, 10, Queen and King: 5 + 10 + 12 + 13 = 40. Another player also has four catches, but theirs are Ace, 4, 6 and 7: 14 + 4 + 6 + 7 = 31. Level on catches, but you win on the tiebreak.

Go Fish has no single authority, and most houses play it slightly differently. Where there's a real choice, here's the one this table makes, so nothing catches you out:

The question	How this table plays it
Does a successful ask earn another go?	Yes. Keep asking until you miss.
If you fish out the very rank you asked for?	You go again. Some families end the turn on any "go fish".
Must you hold the rank you ask for?	Yes. The near-universal rule, and without it the deduction disappears.
When your hand empties, how many do you draw?	One. Both forms are played; one card is what Bicycle and Pagat describe.
Can you hold a completed catch back?	No. You lay it the moment you have it, and if you don't, the table lays it for you after a short wait, because otherwise a player could stall the game forever.
Can two players share the win?	Only if they're level on both catches and points. A tie on catches alone is broken by the catch-value points above; still level and both win.

If your family plays one of these the other way and you'd like the choice, say so: shannon@newfiecards.com. 120s already has house rules the host picks; there's no reason this couldn't.

Scat (31), 120s (Auction) and Krazy 8's are all playable too.