Match suit or rank, and play an eight to change the suit.
The ancestor of a whole family of games, and the one almost everyone learns as a child. Match the top card of the pile, and eights are wild.
A 52-card deck. Five cards each with more than two players, seven with two. The rest becomes the draw pile, and one card is turned face up to start the discard pile.
Play a card matching the top of the pile by suit or by rank. A seven of hearts can be followed by any heart, or by any seven.
If you cannot play, draw from the deck. Keep drawing until you find a playable card, or until the deck runs out, and then pass.
Any eight may be played on anything, and the player who plays it names the suit that must be followed. That is the whole of the game's cleverness — an eight is both an escape and a weapon.
The first player to shed every card wins the hand.
The winner scores the cards left in everyone else's hands:
Each court card: 10 Each ace: 1 Every other card: its face value.
Game is usually 100 points per player at the table.
When the draw pile is empty, either shuffle the discards to make a new one, or play on with players simply passing when stuck. Agree which before you start, because the second version ends much faster.