By learning how to play Sevens, you’ll give yourself access to an easy to set-up and an even easier card game to play.
The Sevens card game rules are straightforward, be the first player to be rid of all your cards by placing them in numerical order starting with the 7 (hence the name of the game).
The game is also surprisingly strategic, as the game is so simple it forces players to really think about their moves as 1 wrong move at the beginning can be very costly.
So learn everything you need to know about Sevens, including how to play, how to set up, and most importantly, how to win!
What is Sevens?
Sevens is a card game where players one by one lay their cards in suit order, and then numerical order starting with the 7.
As the 7 is the starting point for all 4 suits, players can either go in ascending or descending orders when making their moves with the ultimate goal of getting rid of all your cards first.
Number of Players Required: 3+ players.
Who Can Play It: Kids, Pre-teens, Teens, Adults
Difficulty: Easy.
Length of Play: 10 – 15 minutes per round.
Similar to: UNO; Rummy; Wizard; Pinochle; Solitaire
Main Objective: Be the first player to get rid of all their cards.
Why We Love It: Sevens is an incredibly easy game for beginners to pick up, so is ideal if you’re introducing youngsters to card games.
Playing Sevens – What You’ll Need.
All you’ll need to play Sevens is a standard 52 pack of cards; if you’re someone who plays a variety of different card games, then it’s worth investing in a good quality pack.
Grab yourself a deck like this one from Monarch, which is not only built to last but looks high quality as well.
How To Set Up Sevens
The first thing you need to do is decide on a dealer, have everyone draw cards with the player with the highest drawn card, starting as the beginning dealer.
Start setting up Sevens by taking the Jokers out of the pack and giving the rest of the cards a good shuffle.
Hand out all of the cards evenly between players; there are no draw piles or discard piles in this game, so once all the cards have been handed out, there’s nothing more you’ll need to do.
Sevens Rules
Learning how to play Sevens is very straightforward; a good comparison to the way this game gets played is with dominoes.
Related – Official Domino Rules
Starting the Game
The game begins with whoever has the 7 of Diamonds in their hand. They need to lay it down on the table as the starting card.
Play is turn-based and goes round in a clockwise fashion to the left of the player who originally played the Diamond 7.
How to Play Sevens
The main goal of Sevens is to get rid of all your cards. First, a player can place one of their cards down on their go if they either have:
- A 7 of any suit;
- A card that is next in the number sequence of any card that has been played so far.
So this means that if there are the 7 of Diamonds on the table, the next player can either play a 7 of another suit or a 6 or 8 of Diamonds.
If the player whose turn it is can’t go, then they have to skip a turn as the play moves onto the next person and continues until a player can lay a card down.
Whoever manages to get rid of all their cards first wins the game.
Scoring In Sevens
Games of Sevens are fairly quick, which means you can play plenty of rounds in a short space of time so introducing a scoring system makes sense.
Take inspiration from the classic UNO rules and use the same scoring system, add up everyone who has cards left and award the winning player the combined score.
Work scoring out as follows:
- Numbered cards – Face Value;
- Ace – 1 point;
- Jack, Queen, King – 10 points.
When everyone’s done playing, whoever has the most points accumulated across the entire game wins.
Sevens Video Tutorial
Frequently Asked Questions
How many cards do you start with in Sevens?
Players don’t start with a set number of cards in Sevens; as the entire pack gets dealt out to participants, how many each player gets is dependent on the number of players.
Can players ‘hold back cards’ in Sevens?
If a player has a card that they can play, they aren’t allowed to refuse to play it or pretend that they don’t have a card that can get placed into the middle.
This is to prevent the game from being ‘stuck’ at any point where nobody can make a move, feel free to disqualify anyone caught doing this from the round.
Is Ace high or low in Sevens?
The Ace is low in Sevens, and alongside the King is the last card that players will need to play before the suit is completed.
A good tip to help victory is focusing on the suits in which you have an Ace or a King first to try to get rid of them as soon as possible.
Alternative Games to Sevens
Learning how to play Sevens means you’ll have access to the perfect beginner’s card game to play when you just have a deck of cards to hand.
And once you and your pals have managed to master Sevens, feel free to move onto more advanced card games such as the Kemps card game or the James Bond card game.
Alternatively, refresh your memory with some absolute classic card games by re-learning the Solitaire rules and the Go-Fish rules.
Or, if you’re after some guides to drinking games to play with your adult friends, start by reading both the Horse Race game rules or the Cops and Robbers card game.
