What you need
A standard 52-card deck from which you remove one queen, leaving 51 cards. Any queen will do. Two to eight players can take part; the game is at its best with three to six.
You can also play with a special Old Maid deck, in which every card has a twin except the single Old Maid card. The rules are identical.
Setup
Shuffle and deal out all the cards, one at a time, face down. Some players will end up with one card more than others; that does not matter.
Everyone looks at their hand and lays down every pair they hold face down in front of them. A pair is two cards of the same rank (two 7s, two jacks). If you hold three of a kind, put down two and keep the third.
How to play
The dealer begins by fanning out their remaining cards face down and offering them to the player on the left. That player takes one card without looking, adds it to their hand, and discards a pair if the new card makes one.
That player then fans their own hand and offers it to the next player on the left, and so on around the table.
If you get rid of all your cards, you are safe and sit out. Play simply skips you: the player on your right offers their hand to the next person who still has cards.
Scoring and winning
Eventually every card has been paired off except one queen, which cannot be matched. The player holding it is the Old Maid and loses the round. Everyone else wins.
There is no formal scoring. If you want a longer game, play several rounds and give the Old Maid one penalty point each time; the lowest total after an agreed number of rounds wins.
If someone is found to have put down two cards that were not a pair, leaving three odd cards at the end instead of one, that player is the Old Maid regardless of who holds the queen.
Common variants
- Black Peter (Schwarzer Peter). The German and central European version removes a jack instead of a queen. The loser traditionally gets a smudge of soot on the nose from a blackened cork.
- Reverse Old Maid. Same mechanics, but the holder of the last odd card wins. Useful when a child always seems to end up with the queen.
- Papaz kaçtı (Turkey). Three kings are removed instead of one queen, play goes anticlockwise, and the holder of the odd king is eliminated; further rounds are played until one survivor is left.
- Offer to the right. Some families pass to the right. It makes no difference to the game.
Tips for first games
- Hold your fan so that the card you want to lose is slightly raised or sticks out. Most children fall for it once; after that it becomes a bluffing game.
- Shuffle the order of your cards before each offer so the next player cannot track where the queen went.
- Lay discarded pairs face down and keep them tidy, so no one is tempted to peek.
Frequently asked questions
Which queen do you take out for Old Maid? Any one of the four. Removing a queen leaves one queen without a partner once the other two are paired.
Can you play Old Maid with two players? Yes, though it is quicker and less fun. Three or more players makes the ending less predictable.
What if someone has three of a kind? They discard two as a pair and keep the third card, which can still be paired later.
Does the Old Maid lose every round, or is there a score? Traditionally the holder of the odd queen simply loses that round. For a tournament, count one penalty point per round and play to a set number of rounds.
