War is a children’s card game played in many parts of the world. No strategy is involved in this game. All that is needed to play this card game is: a deck of card, the simple ability to recognize which of two cards is higher in rank, and to follow a few simple rules. The goal of this game is win all of the cards in the deck.
In War there are only two players and a standard 52 deck of cards is used. Cards rank from high to low in the following order: A K Q J 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2. Suits are ignored in this game; they are not important. It is only the value of the card that is important; Ace is the highest card and 2 is the lowest.
To start the game all of the cards are dealt out, so that each player has 26 cards. Players do not look at their cards, but keep them in a pile face down. The object of the game is to win all the cards.
In this game, both players take their turns are the same time. To take a turn, both players turn the top card in their pile over so it is face up and put that cards on the table in front of both players. Whoever turns over the higher card then takes both cards and puts these two cards (face down) at the bottom of their pile of cards. Then both players turn over their next card, and so on, and so on.
If the two turned over cards are equal in value (for example if both players turn over a 4) there is a “war” to see who will pick up the cards. The equal (or tied) cards stay on the table and both players play the next card in their pile face down and then turn over another card from their pile face-up. Whoever has the higher of the new face-up cards wins the war and adds all six cards to their card pile. (Since the goal of the game is to win all of the cards in the deck it is a good thing to win “a war”.) If the new face-up cards are of equal value as well, the war continues: each player puts another card face-down and another card face-up. The war goes on like this as long as the face-up cards continue to be equal. As soon as the cards are different the player with the higher card wins all the cards in the war.
The game continues until one player has all the cards in his or her pile and thus wins. This can take a long time! This is a very fun game for children to play to pass the time as it does not take any strategy and this is a game that can go on for awhile.
One reason I have presented these various card games over the last few days is because playing cards is a great way to practice your numbers in a new language. I hope you are able to try one of these games soon.
