Crazy Eights

Crazy Eights is a shedding card game for two to seven players, generally regarded as the best known American member of the Eights card game family. The object is to be the first player to discard every card from hand, matching each played card to the previous one by rank or suit, with eights acting as wild cards that let the player calling them change the required suit. The game traces to an earlier form called Eights that circulated in the 1930s; the name Crazy Eights appeared by the 1940s, reportedly borrowed from Section 8, the United States military designation for discharging a mentally unstable soldier. Some historians trace its mechanics to the German card game Mau-Mau. Originally a children's pastime played with cards left over from Euchre, it is played today with a standard 52-card deck for five or fewer players, or two decks shuffled together for larger groups, and it became the basis for the commercial card game Uno.