Who doesn’t love a fun game to play when friends come over?! If you like Scrabble but don’t have the time to play for long, try Speed Scrabble. You can play a few games of Speed Scrabble in the same length of time it might take to play one game of regular Scrabble. Not that that’s a bad thing. But if you don’t got the time, Speed Scrabble is pretty awesome.
If the kids aren’t around, try Cards Against Humanity. It’s pretty raunchy, yet hilariously funny at the same time.
And then there are magic card tricks. Not the kind where you make a card disappear and then re-appear in someone’s shirt pocket. The kind of card tricks that use laying out the cards in specific patterns.
Speed Scrabble
Four players can divide one set of tiles, each starting with seven tiles. The board is not used. On the count of three, players flip their seven tiles to begin building words with their own tiles on the table in front of them.
Multiple words can be built with those seven tiles, or one word, whichever gets the player to using all seven tiles in that first round. The first player to use all seven tiles says “Two” and all players take two more tiles whether or not they had used all their tiles.
Hasbro Scrabble classic board game Amazon affiliate link https://amzn.to/3IErXJj
Interesting points:
You build without the scrabble board.
Build your own words and don’t connect to anyone else’s words.
No way out: you must take two tiles if someone else uses all their tiles in a round and says “two.”
Re-arrange the words you have built at any time you wish.
Repeat words as many times as you wish.
Rules
If all players are struggling to use their tiles, players agree on a “two” and all players take two tiles. “Two” can also be commanded after three minutes have elapsed and no one has used their tiles.
Play continues until all tiles have been taken. Or if there are not enough tiles for each player to take at least one on the last round, those tiles in the center pile are discarded.
The first player to use all of his tiles says “done” and play stops immediately.
We don’t bother adding up and subtracting points on the tiles. We simply declare the person who said “done” first, the winner. Actually, we inspect that person’s words to make sure the words are legit before declaring the winner.
Cards Against Humanity
Obviously as the name states, this is a card game. The cards have fill-in-the-blank statements that players fill in with words or phrases. Many of these are embarrassingly funny or downright crude! But most of them are hilarious. The cards that I’ve seen are definitely for adults. That doesn’t mean we act like adults when we play this card game.
Cringe-worthy and funny
I think the average adult would not say some of the statements written on these cards if it were not for this game. I’ve cringed at some of the cards. But at the end of the night, it’s a very funny game. As an example of how crude the game is, the rules state that the person who took the most recent poop begins as the dealer.
There are black cards and white cards. The black cards have the questions. The white cards are used to answer the questions. The dealer of a hand reads a question from a black card. The other players look through the white cards in their hands and select an answer they think is fitting for the question. The white cards are put in a central pile face down.
The dealer shuffles the white cards and reads the question followed by the answer from each card. The dealer picks whichever answer is the funniest and the player who submitted that card gets a point and keeps the black card to keep track of points. At each round, a new dealer leads the round. All players draw enough cards to have 10 white cards in hand. Players decide on a set number of points to win which depends on how long you want to play.
As you can see, the cards are very different, and it helps have to have a open sense of humor!
Cards Against Humanity original pack. The game has expansion packs sold separately. Amazon affiliate link https://amzn.to/4cmN2pA
Card Tricks Using Math
I’ll explain a little about this card trick. There’s a video (of course!) that shows exactly how to do this trick. Sometimes it’s easier to watch than to read instructions for a trick like this.
You need 21 regular playing cards. Have someone select one card from the 21 without showing or telling you and then to insert it back in the stack of cards. Now, deal the cards face up in three columns, placing one card in row 1, then one card in row 2, then one card in row 3. You will have three rows with seven cards in each.
The person who selected the card should tell you which row the card is in but not tell you which card. Pick up all three rows in a specific order: the row that has “the card” in it needs to be in the middle of the three piles. If you’re told that the first row has the card, pick up row 2, pick up row 1, pick up row 3.
Repeat laying out the cards in three rows two more times. The selected card will be the 11th card. Start counting from row 1 card 1, row 1 card 2, row 1 card 3, etc., until you get to row 2 card 4.
Marvin’s Magic – Fifty Greatest Card Tricks Set Amazon affiliate link https://amzn.to/3TvOGxv
Video
Like I said, it’s sometimes easier to watch a video than to read instructions. Check out this video on wikiHow: https://www.wikihow.com/Perform-a-Card-Trick-Using-Math
I hope you enjoyed learning some new games to play. Try them out and let me know what you think!
