How to play Go Fish

Go Fish is the gentle memory game generations of children learn at the kitchen table — and it's quietly good fun for grown-ups too. There's no scoring to track and no complicated rules; you just ask, collect, and try to remember what the other player has been fishing for. Here you play head-to-head against the computer.

Goal

Collect more books than the bot. A book is all four cards of one rank — all four Queens, all four sevens, and so on.

Taking a turn

• On your turn, ask the bot for a rank. You may only ask for a rank you already hold at least one of — click any card in your hand to ask for its rank.
• If the bot has cards of that rank, it must hand over all of them, and you get to ask again.
• If it has none, it says "Go Fish" and you draw a card from the ocean. If you happen to draw the very rank you asked for, you take another turn.

Books

• As soon as you hold all four cards of a rank they're set aside as a completed book.
• The game ends when every card has been made into a book. Whoever holds more books wins.

Strategy

Go Fish rewards attention. Listen to what the bot asks for — if it requests nines, it holds at least one nine, so asking for nines yourself later may win them. Try to empty ranks from your hand into books quickly, and remember which cards you've handed over, because they hint at what your opponent is collecting. A good memory beats good luck here more often than you'd think.