How to Play the Snap Card Game

The first card game I remember playing is Snap. We were sitting on my cousins’ brown shag carpet, heads together, thinking we were just like the grownups. We also played in hotel rooms, that is until we were told we were too loud. Oops.

If we had known about Garbage or James Bond or the card game Golf we could have played those to be quieter. But that was in the days before internet and sites like this one to share all these wonderful games!

Snap is a very simple game, much like Slapjack, but there are a few rule changes that I have found that might make it more interesting. Let’s get into the rules and how to play.

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What You Need for Snap Card Game

Snap is best played with two or three players. You will need a deck of cards with the jokers removed. If you want to play with more than three players, you will need two decks of cards shuffled together.

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Playing Snap Card Game

To start, choose a dealer. This can be done in any way you choose, but everyone drawing one card from   the deck and high card is the dealer, seems to be a great, quick way to decide.

The dealer will deal out all of the cards. It doesn’t matter if one player gets more cards than another. Players leave their cards in facedown piles in front of them.

When everyone is ready and paying attention, the player rot the dealer’s left flips over her card. It is important that cards be flipped over away from the player to avoid an unfair advantage. Players take turns flipping the top card of their pile over, making face up piles beside their draw piles.

Players continue flipping over cards until the flipped over card matches one of the cards on someone else’s pile. When this happens, players call out “snap”. The first player to call out snap wins the matching piles and adds them to the bottom of his facedown pile. Any player can call out snap. It doesn’t have to be the player with one of the matching cards.

When there is a tie between two players for who said snap first, their face up piles go into the middle of the playing area and become the snap pool.

Now when a player flips over a card, she is watching for a match with player’s cards and matches with the pool cards. When a card matches the pool the first player to call “snap pool” wins that middle stack and the one that matches.

There can be more than two snap pool piles (if there are more ties in the game).

Sometimes, players call out snap when there is no match. This player needs to pay a penalty. The most common penalty is for that player to have to place her face up pile in the middle as a snap pool. (See the rule variations for more ways.)

When a player has run out of cards in his draw deck, he stays in the game. He can continue hoping to spot a match and gain back cards. However, if he hasn’t won any cards by the time his next turn is up, he is out of the game.

Winning Snap Card Game

To win Snap, you will need to collect all of the cards. Alternately, you could set a tie limit for the game and the player with the most cards at the end of the time is the winner.

Rule Variations

The first rule changes would be for the penalty for calling a wrong snap. First, you could have the player give the top card of her draw pile to the player who flipped over the last card. Second, you could have that player give a card from her draw pile to each player. When playing with very young kids you may skip the penalty and instead give a warning or just over look it. If wrong snap calls are becoming a problem (a player calls out snap every time a card is flipped) you could make a rule that if you make three false snap calls, you are out of the game.

One Pile Snap

Another way to play is that all players flip their cards into one center pile. Player will then have to watch for the top cards matching.

Flip Time            

Once players get use to the game, you may want to try out the rule that has everyone flipping their cards at the same time. They will have to look quickly to see any matches, including any snap pool matches. Older kids seem to like the speed of this variation.

Fast, Simple Fun

The Snap card game is a simple one but can give you hours of fun with the right rules variations.

For more card fun check out Crazy Fish, Crazy 8s and Linger Longer. Be sure to visit our Family Game Shelf shop for tons of fun with seasonal and original games including our Whacky Putt mini golf dice game and our escape rooms for kids.