Skip-Bo is a card game for 2-6 people with set rules. The player who gets rid of all the cards the fastest wins. How to prepare and play the game and what the rules are, you can read in this practice tip.
Rules of Skip-Bo
Skip-Bo has many decks of cards, which makes the game look complicated at first. However, the gameplay is very simple and can be learned quickly.
- Object of the game: The most important pile of the game is the player’s stockpile. The goal is to clear it as quickly as possible and get rid of the cards in numerical order. Whether cards are still in your hand or in the discard pile is irrelevant. The highlight: Only the top card may ever be seen and used by you.
- Who is the dealer? The dealer is determined by each player drawing a card at the beginning. The player with the highest card deals the cards for the player’s stockpile and the hand cards. The player to his left starts the first round.
- How many cards do you deal in Skip-Bo? Your hand cards pave the way for the cards in your player deck. At the beginning of each round, you are supposed to hold 5 cards in your hand.
- Discard piles: At the end of each turn, one hand card is placed on the discard piles in front of each player. Up to four piles are possible. However, you may only use the top card for play and not a card that is covered by another.
- “Skip-Bo” card: If you have drawn a card that does not show a number, but only “Skip-Bo”, this is a wild card. This can be placed instead of any number. Jokers can also be placed instead of a 1 at the beginning of the game.
- Five cards discarded: If a player was able to place all five cards in his hand on the building piles in the center in one round, he may draw five cards again and continue playing. This continues until he can’t or doesn’t want to place any more cards.
- Drawing too many cards: If a player draws too many cards at the beginning of his turn, he must place the cards that are in excess under his player stockpile.
- Team: It is also possible to play in teams. Here, the game is played in the same way as usual, but a team has only won when both team partners have got rid of their player stockpiles.
How many cards do you get in Skip-Bo?
How many cards each player receives depends on how many people are participating in the game.
An example: With two, three or four players, each player receives 30 cards. With five or six players, only twenty.
But you can extend your Skip-Bo-Fun by buying a further card deck with different Skip-Bo-colours.
How to set up Skip-Bo
As with any card game, all cards are first shuffled well.
- Position and logic of the draw pile and stockpile
The draw piles are placed face down next to the player. The top card can now be turned over from each player’s stockpile. Then all the remaining cards are placed face down in a pile in the center of the table. This pile is the so-called draw pile.
- Start of the game
The player to the left of the dealer starts the game. He draws 5 cards from the draw pile. With the help of these 5 cards, he must now try to get rid of the top card of the stockpile.
- Discard Piles
To do this, each player can form up to four discard piles next to the deck. Each discard pile starts with the number 1 or a joker (the “Skip-Bo” card).
The discard piles must all be placed from 1 to 12 in order. When a pile has been placed up to 12, it is removed from the game to allow for a new discard pile.
For example, if you have a 1 in your hand, among other cards, and your stockpile starts with a 2, you put the 1 of your hand to get rid of the 2 of your stockpile. - The game goes on
Once you have discarded the top card of the stockpile, immediately reveal the next card.
- The End of your turn
At the end of your turn, you place one of your remaining hand cards on a discard pile in front of you. You may have four of these. Then you end your turn, and it’s the next player’s turn.
- Next Round
In later rounds, you will probably need to place new cards on top of existing discard piles, but you may only use the ‘newest’ card at a time.
How to win Skip-Bo
Once a player has discarded all the cards in the player deck during the game, the game is over and that player wins.
