The one everyone learned as a kid, for 2 to 6. Match your cards into pairs and lay them down. Take a card from the hand on your left without seeing it. One queen has no partner — don't be the one left holding it.
- One pack, no jokers, with one queen taken out — 51 cards. The queen of clubs goes.
- Every card is dealt, one at a time, starting left of the dealer. Some hands get one more card than others.
- Everyone lays down every pair they were dealt straight away, face up. A pair is two cards of the same number or picture.
- The player left of the dealer goes first.
- Take one card from the player on your left. Their cards are face down to you — you pick by where it sits, not by what it is.
- If it makes a pair with a card you hold, lay the pair down.
- Then it's the next player's go — they take a card from the player on their left.
- Anyone who has run out of cards is out, and the play goes past them.
- The first player to run out of cards wins.
- The rest are placed in the order they run out.
- In the end one player is left holding a single queen. That player is the Old Maid.
On the felt: the hand you take from sits in the middle, face down — on your go its cards glow, and a tap takes one. The pairs laid down sit beside it. If someone leaves mid-game, their cards go to the next player still holding cards, so the odd queen always stays in play.
Your first game, step by step →
Deal this game →