Which Screw Your Neighbor card game?

Screw Your Neighbor: identify the game first.

Ask what a player does on a turn, rather than relying on the name. Pagat’s guide to neighbor games records the name for several unrelated games, not just these two. The comparison below separates the two meanings covered here; if neither matches your memory, check that broader list.

A one-card opening round by itself does not identify Screw Your Neighbor. Our Oh Hell game also starts with one card by default. The useful distinction is the decision: calling a number of tricks and then playing your card, or deciding whether to exchange it.

The Screw Your Neighbor version with bidding.

If your family’s Screw Your Neighbor card game uses bids, our Oh Hell table may be the version you want. Every round, each player predicts how many tricks they will take. A trick contains one card from each player. After all cards are played, compare each person’s prediction with the number they actually won.

Our table uses four players, one standard deck, aces high, and no jokers. Follow the suit led whenever possible. If you have none, you may play any card. The highest trump wins, or the highest card of the led suit when no trump is played. The trick winner leads the next one. Read the complete rules before playing a full session.

Choose the deal sequence and scoring before starting. Some groups use this same bidding game under the name Up and Down the River. Our guide shows four round schedules and explains the turning-point hand. For a physical card night, the four-player score sheet records bids, tricks, and points under our two supported scoring options.

The Screw Your Neighbor version with one-card swaps.

In the Cuckoo rules described by Pagat, each player holds one card and can keep it or try to exchange it with the next player. A king can block an exchange. After the turns, the lowest card loses a life. Suits do not matter, and ace is low. See the linked rules for the dealer’s turn, ties, and variations.

This website does not currently run that single-card game. If those are the Screw Your Neighbor rules you remember, use the Cuckoo guide rather than our bidding practice. Our Oh Hell score sheet is also designed for trick counts and points; it is not a life tracker for that game.

Is Screw Your Neighbor the same as “screw the dealer”?

“Screw the dealer” can describe an optional bidding restriction within Oh Hell. It is a rule choice, so the phrase alone does not identify every game called Screw Your Neighbor. At our table, the dealer bids last and cannot make the total bids equal the number of available tricks when this restriction is on.

For example, in a four-card round, the first three bids are one, zero, and two. They total three, so the dealer cannot bid one. Zero, two, three, and four remain available. When the earlier bids already total more than four, no nonnegative dealer bid could make the total equal four, so this restriction removes nothing.

You can switch the dealer restriction off before a new game here. That changes which bids are legal; it does not turn the table into the card-swapping version. Coppercod’s Oh Hell rules also use the “Screw the Dealer” label for this bidding option.

Screw Your Neighbor questions.