Go Fish

Go Fish is a memory game in disguise

It looks like pure luck, and for a while it is, but the player who remembers what's been asked for wins Go Fish. You can only ask for a rank you already hold, which means every time you ask, you're announcing to the table that you have at least one of that rank. So is everyone else. When an opponent asks another player for sevens, file it away: they're holding sevens. Later, when you happen to draw a seven yourself, you know exactly who to hit up for the rest. That one habit (actually listening to the asks) is the difference between playing sharp and drawing blind from the stock all game.

Pressing your turn

A correct guess keeps your turn going. Ask an opponent for a rank, and if they have any they must hand over every card of it. Then you ask again, same player or a different one. A good run can strip several cards from the table before you finally miss and get told to go fish. So don't fire your asks off at random:

• Lead with ranks you've heard others request, since you already know those cards are out there.
• When you draw a new card from the stock, remember who asked for that rank earlier: that's your next target.
• Bear in mind the computers are tracking your asks too, so every question also gives something away.

The tells worth learning

Both computer opponents give off the same tells human players do, because the rules force everyone's hand. The big one: nobody can ask for a rank they don't hold, so every question is a small confession. Keep a short mental list for each opponent, even three or four ranks deep, and refresh it every round. You don't need a perfect memory, just a better one than the player across the table.

The second tell is the fresh draw. When an opponent misses and fishes a card from the stock, watch their next turn closely. If they suddenly ask for a rank nobody has mentioned all game, odds are they just drew it. The guess isn't certain, but Go Fish is a game of better-than-random guesses, and stacking small edges like that is the whole craft.

Your own asks leak information the same way, so think about order. Holding three jacks and one lonely two, chase the jacks first. A hit finishes a book on the spot, and even a miss gives little away, since you already own most of that rank. The lonely two can wait; every turn spent asking about it advertises a card you can't defend yet.

Books and the finish

Collect all four cards of a rank and it becomes a book, laid down out of play. There are thirteen ranks in the deck, so thirteen books in all, and the game ends once every one has been completed. Whoever has assembled the most books wins: it's the count of finished sets that decides it, not how many loose cards anyone holds at the end.

Some endgame arithmetic helps. With thirteen books available, seven puts victory beyond doubt, but in a three-player game five often carries the day when the other two split the rest. Late on, run through the finished books in your head. It tells you exactly which ranks are still live, and it stops you burning a turn asking about cards that already left the table. Chase the ranks you're closest to finishing, and use your memory edge to snatch the last card of a book before an opponent corners it first.

A Victorian parlour survivor

Go Fish belongs to the quartet family, card games about collecting sets of four, and its ancestors were big business in the 1800s. American families played Authors, a set-collecting game from the 1860s with famous writers pictured on the cards. British families had Happy Families, sold by the London games maker Jaques from the 1850s, its cards drawn by John Tenniel, the artist who went on to illustrate Alice in Wonderland. Play either one with a standard deck instead of printed characters and you're most of the way to Go Fish, the version that lasted because any deck in any drawer could host it. The name comes from the phrase you'd rather not hear: ask wrong, and it's go fish, draw your card, and hope.