How to Play Uno

The card game called Uno was first developed by Merle Robbins in the year 1971. Today, it is owned by 'Mattel', a toy company. The instructions on how to play Uno given below would help in understanding the game.

Basics of Uno
To understand the method of playing Uno, one should first get familiar with the types/kinds of cards being used in the game. There are four types of cards used to play Uno. These are distinguished by their colors (red, blue, green and yellow). Every color/kind has cards with ranks from 0-9. Apart from these ranked cards, there are special 'black action' & 'action' cards. The names of action cards are 'skip', 'reverse' and 'draw two'. 'Wild' and 'Wild Draw Four' are the black action cards. Both these cards have four copies each. All the regular colored and action cards have 2 copies each. The zero card however, is just one (without a copy) in every color suit. In all, there are total 108 Uno cards in a deck or pack. A maximum of 10 players can play this game at a time. If you have regular cards, you can still enjoy this game.

Instructions to Play Uno
The method of playing Uno card game is simple to understand.

• Objective of the game is get rid of the cards in hands.
• One has to first decide on a 'dealer' in this game; a dealer is selected through a draw. The person with a card having highest face value is the dealer.
• Dealer distributes seven cards to each player. The cards that remain after distribution are used as draw.
• The method of playing is such that one who is playing tries to match the color of a card being played with that of top, exposed card. If no card matches with the top card, one can play the 'wild' or 'wild four' cards.
• One can just draw the top card and keep it in hand till the next turn; this is done if no card matches with the top card.
• The special cards have an important role to play in the course of the game. The 'reverse' card for example, changes the moving turns. It means that if turns are moving in a clockwise manner, the reverse card changes it to anticlockwise manner.
• The skip card indicates that the player with next turn cannot play. His turn gets skipped.
• The 'draw two' card is used to indicate that next player has to draw, 2 cards instead of one. There is a rule that he cannot even discard during this particular round.
• The black action cards have great significance in the game of Uno. The 'wild' card can be used to change color of a card that is being played.
• If it is not possible to match color of the card present at top in the discard pile, one can use the 'wild four card'. This card not only changes the color of card being played, but also forces the other/next player to draw 4 cards at a time.
• One can learn how to play Uno attack and make the game even more interesting. In the game of Uno attack, a card shooter is used. The players do not draw cards in Uno attack. They press the button on the card shooter, which shoots random number of cards.

The activity of playing cards is one of the enjoyable pastimes in vacations. The Uno card game is also one of them. The rules of this game too, are simple to understand.