Family classic · 2–6 players
Go Fish
Ask wisely, remember what was said, and collect more books than anyone else.
Choose a rank from your hand.
Requests and results will appear here.
Game complete
You win!
Ask. Fish.
Make a book.
Follow a sample game in the illustrated guide, then consult the complete rules below. The live table has four players; Go Fish can be played by two to six people.
Illustrated guide
See how a game unfolds.
These examples are separate from the live game.
Complete rules
The rules below describe the version played on this site. Other common ways to play are noted under Variants.
Origin & history
Go Fish belongs to a family of asking-and-collecting card games that became popular in the nineteenth century. Earlier games used special packs featuring subjects such as authors or fictional families. Go Fish uses the same idea with an ordinary 52-card deck: ask for ranks you hold and collect complete groups of four. Its precise origin is not established.
Objective
Make more books than the other players. A book is all four cards of one rank, one from each suit. A standard deck contains 13 possible books.
Equipment & setup
Use one standard 52-card deck without Jokers. At this digital table, four players each receive five cards and the remaining 32 cards are placed face down in the centre as the pond. You play against West, North and East. The first player asks a chosen opponent for a rank.
At a physical table, two to six people can play. A common deal gives seven cards each to two players and five cards each to three or more players; agree the opening hand size before play.
Gameplay
On your turn, choose one specific opponent and name a rank of which you already hold at least one card. For example, if you hold a Four, you may ask West for Fours. If West has any, West must give you every Four they hold. You keep the turn and may ask any opponent for any rank you now hold.
If the chosen opponent has none, they say “Go fish.” Draw the top card of the pond. On this site, the human player clicks the pond to make that draw. If you draw the rank you just asked for, show it and take another turn. If it is a different rank, keep it and pass play to the next player on the left. When the pond is empty, an unsuccessful request simply passes the turn.
As soon as a player collects all four cards of a rank, they form a book and put those cards aside. The digital table does this automatically. If a player has no cards at the start of their turn while the pond still has cards, this version gives them one pond card so they can continue. An empty-handed player is skipped once the pond is empty.
Scoring & points
Each completed book is worth one. Individual cards do not have point values, and uncompleted groups do not score. There are 13 books to share among the players.
End of game & winning
The digital game continues until all 13 books have been completed. Count each player's books. The player with the highest count wins; players tied for the highest count share the win.
Variants
Many physical tables stop as soon as a player has no cards or the pond runs out, and then compare the books already collected. Other tables, like this one, continue until every card belongs to a book. Some groups ask for a specific card rather than a whole rank, draw a full new hand when a player runs out of cards, or collect pairs instead of books. These are rule variations and are not separate selectable modes on this page.
Authors and Happy Families are related asking-and-collecting games played with different packs or without a pond; they are not identical to this Go Fish game.
Category
Quartet · Collecting · Asking
Also known as
Fish · Peixinho
Documented countries
Portugal