Guest Author - Lynn Little

Part of hosting a party includes providing entertainment. Games are fun and will be enjoyable to most guests. Card games are very portable and can be played pretty much in any setting. Some card games are better suited for large groups. Here are some of the better card games to play at your next party.

Great Dalmuti can played with up to 10 people. The Great Dalmuti is a specialty card deck but has a regular playing card counterpart game called President. All cards are dealt the the players. The Dalmuti leads the first hand and can play as many cards that are of the same suit that he wishes. The next player must play the same number of cards in a lower suit to play on the hand. When no one cards can be played, the last person to play on the hand wins the round and goes first the next one. The first person to get rid of their cards is the new Great Dalmuti. Play continues until everyone has gotten rid of all of their cards. Players then sit in order that they got rid of their cards. The real fun in Dalmuti comes from the Dalmuti making in game decrees over his subjects. For example, he might rule that everyone must trade one card or that the Lesser Dalmuti is not allowed to speak.

Dilbert's Corporate Shuffle is very similar to Great Dalmuti but has specialty cards impact the hand. The concept is the same in how you play cards. So, if the crowd is not so much into the game dynamics of the Great Dalmuti, then Corporate Shuffle is a kinder alternative.

Pit is a commodity trading card game that can be played by up to 8 people. Players make trades in an effort to corner the market on one commodity. Games can become pretty boisterous. Players shout out how many of the same commodity they have for trade. Your trade must be all of the same commodity. The only exception is trading the bear. You can't win if you have the bear in your hand. When someone has 9 of a kind or 8 and the bull, then they slap the market card and yell "corner." The advanced set of Pit comes with a bell that players ring instead of slapping the corner card.

Are You a Werewolf? is like Clue in that you are looking to figure out who is a werewolf. A lot of players can play this game at once. One person will have to be the moderator and guide the different phases of the game. Players receive a card that will have their role in the game. They will either be a villager, werewolf, or seer. Each night phase the werewolves vote on a villager to kill. The next phase the villagers decide which person to lynch. The seer can see the werewolves and will try to convince the villagers to lynch a werewolf while the werewolves will try to convince players to lynch someone else. There are Are You a Werewolf? cards but are not needed to play. You can use regular cards to assign roles.

Spoons is a fast paced card game that is great for large groups. You will need spoons for all players except one. You may have to use more than one deck of cards depending on the number of players. Everyone starts off with four cards, then must pass a card to their left. The dealer instead of being passed a card draws a card from the deck. The first person with four of a kind grabs a spoon then the rest of the players grab the remaining spoons. You can either keep score or eliminate players until there is only one left to determine a winner.

Sneaks is very similar to Spoons but is a specialty card set that has cute little plastic sneakers to use to grab instead of Spoons.

Card games are great ice breakers for groups. Party card games are simple enough to teach a group within 10 minutes. Playing card games at your next party will help to ensure everyone has a good time and remembers the evening for a while.