Players:
2
Ages: 4-12
Place:
Table or other flat surface
Equipment:
1 deck of VoWac Alphabet Playing Cards
War
is a very simple card game with absolutely no real skill involved, but it
is a great game for visual discrimination and alphabetizing.
Children seem to delight in its elements of chance and surprise in
much the same way that adults savor bingo.
War is also ideal for introducing young card novices to
the concept of rank.
The
classic game of War is between two players, each aiming to capture all the
opponent’s cards. Each
player picks a card and the one who draws the “a” or closest to the
“a” card shuffles and deals the entire deck, one card at a time, face
down. Next, each player
places his cards in one facedown stack in front of him (no peeking!).
To
begin, both players turn over their top cards simultaneously and place
them side by side, face up, in the center.
The one who plays the higher-ranking card gets to keep both cards.
(The
card closest to “A” is the higher ranking card.)
The cards are added to the bottom of the winner’s stack, and the
play continues in this manner.
When
both players turn over cards of the same
letter/saying “war”
is declared and the fun begins! Each
player places the top three cards from his stack facedown on the
original cards. Then each
places a fourth card face-up on
the top of the three facedown cards.
The higher face-up card wins all ten cards. If the cards match again, it’s “double war,” and the
battle continues in the same manner until there is a victor.
The player who
captures all 64 cards is the winner.
A player also wins if her opponent runs out of cards in the middle
of a war. Since every game of
War has the potential of dragging out into something akin to the Hundred
Years War, it’s not a bad idea to set a time limit before beginning the
game. |
