The deal
Four players receive five cards each. The remaining cards form the pond in the middle of the table.
Family classic · 4 players
Go Fish
Ask wisely, remember what was said, and collect more books than anyone else.
Your turn
Choose a rank from your hand.
Y
You5 cards · 0 books
Game complete
You win!
01 How to play
Ask. Fish.
Make a book.
Go Fish is a memory and collecting game. Build complete groups of four cards with the same rank.
Ask a player
On your turn, choose a rank you already hold and ask one player for all their cards of that rank.
Take the cards
If they have any, they must hand over every card of that rank. You then take another turn.
Go fish
If they have none, click the deck in the pond to draw. Catch the rank you asked for and you play again; otherwise, play passes left.
Complete books
Whenever you collect all four suits of one rank, those cards become a book and leave your hand automatically.
Win the game
The game ends when all 13 books are complete. The player with the most books wins; equal totals share the win.
02 History & variants
From card families to “Go fish”.
A nineteenth-century family
Asking-and-collecting games became popular in the nineteenth century through special packs such as Authors and Happy Families. Go Fish applies the same accessible idea to an ordinary deck: ask for a rank you already hold and complete matching books. In Portugal the game is commonly known as Peixinho, a diminutive form of the Portuguese word for fish.
Pairs, books and table size
With a standard deck, many groups collect books of four cards; younger players often collect pairs instead. The opening hand is commonly larger in a two-player game than with three or more players. A successful request may earn another turn, and some tables let the player who draws the requested rank continue as well.