Remember back in the day when life was boring? When you couldn’t choose anything in the world to watch whenever you wanted or download a new app every day of the week? Back when we had to make our own fun? Amazingly enough, I kind of miss those days. I love technology as much as the next mom, but I’m also realizing our kids are missing out on some of the simple things we used to do to have fun, like playing card games. We’ve learned a few new cards games recently and my kids love them! So today I’m going to teach you how to play one of our favorites: California Speed.
The rules are very simple and the game goes fast, and it’s so much fun! You need one deck of cards and it’s a two player game. If you have more people than that, you can set up a couple of pairs playing at once, or rotate people in and out as needed (since each game only takes a few minutes).
Here’s a quick overview:
I’ll go through the rules right here. Since it’s sometimes hard to read rules and make sense of how the game goes, I’ve also made another video which walks you through an entire game (see below). Between the rules and the video, you should be ready to start playing in about 10 minutes!
How to play California Speed:
Shuffle a deck of cards. Deal all the cards out between two players, so each player ends up with half the deck. The object of the game is to get rid of all your cards. Whoever does so first wins the game.
To begin, each player lays out four cards, face up, in front of themselves. Look at all eight cards to see if there are any matches (two fours, two Queens, etc. – color and suit don’t matter). If you can see cards that match, immediately cover each of them with a card from your hand. Now that there are new cards down, continue to look for new matches, and continue to cover any cards that match with new cards from your hand. You should be maintaining 8 piles as you play.
Both players are trying to cover matches at the same time; whoever is faster will be able to play more cards. When all 8 piles are topped with cards that DO NOT match each other, each player picks up the four piles directly in front of him or her and adds them to the bottom of the stack in their hand. Continue playing until one player’s cards are gone.
Tips:
- If there are three cards that match, you (and your opponent) may cover all three.
- If you cover a card with another card that matches it (say, you are covering a 2 and you play another 2 on top of it), you can consider that a match and cover it again with a new card.
- It’s a good idea to play as much as possible on the cards in front of your opponent, so he or she will have more cards to pick up when there are no more matches. However, you also want to play on the cards in front of you in order to prevent your opponent playing on them. So basically, cover any matches you see as quickly as you can!
That’s it for the rules. And here’s the step by step video:
Have fun!
We love playing cards, but have never tried this game. It looks easy enough for younger kids, but challenging enough for everyone. Thanks!
I love this game! Growing up (in Arizona) we called it Michigan Split, though.
A player wins by running out of cards in his hand and draw pile before the other player. Speed is typically played in a two-wins-out-of-three set.
I haven’t had the chance to play this game, but it looks fun and easy to learn! Thanks for this!
thanks! Looks fun! I love card games like these where you go a little crazy! ( wish your blog didn’t have so many pop ups and ads… I know they are a revenue stream, but my older iPad doesn’t like them ?)
Oh my gosh I forget all about this game!!! I used to play it all the time with my grandparents growing up. Thank you for this post!!
We tried this game yesterday and loved it! But we frequently have more than 2 people who want to play so we tried it with 3 people. Each person only had 3 piles, which is still more to keep track of than 4 cards for 2 people, so it was not easy. The advantage is that with 3 people, the game really goes FAST! LOVED IT! thanks!