While I don’t necessarily like the name of the game, I do have to admit that it is fun to play. It’s rules and objective are very similar to Go Fish, but with a twist. Like in Go Fish, players want to make pairs which are discarded from their hand. The last players to get rid of all of the cards in their hand, loses. The difference is that in Old Maid, there is one card without a match-the old maid. The players who ends up with this card at the end of the game, loses. Old Maid can be played with a speciality card deck, such as the one in the picture above, or with a regular card deck with all but one of the Queens removed or with a Joker added. Also, unlike Go Fish, in which players are generally dealt 7 cards and then draw from a deck, in Old Maid all the cards are dealt to the players and they take turns drawing from each other’s hands. Because of this, the game is best played with 3 or more players, otherwise, every draw is guaranteed to be a match to something in your hand!
For those in the more moderate stages of the disease, having a lot of cards to have to scan may be challenging, so playing as “teams” may be less stressful. Or, try playing with half of a deck to simplify the process. Of course, if you have a speciality deck, they might enjoy just looking at the funny pictures.
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