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Fishing games are a family of card games where players play cards from their hand to attempt to capture cards that are face-up on the table, in a shared ‘pool’.

Categorization

I believe they can be divided into three broad groups, in increasing order of luck:

  1. games where cards are played only from the hand,
  2. games where cards are played from both hand and stock,
  3. and games where cards are played only from the stock.

For the first type, where cards are only played from the hand, games include:

In games where cards are played from both hand and stock, after playing a card from the hand (and making any captures), the player turns a second card from the stock and attempts to capture cards with it. These games are popular in East Asia. Games of this type include:

The last type are luck-based games where all cards are turned from the stock. These are commonly gambling or children’s games:

References

  1. (). ‘⁨⁩’. Journal of the International Playing-Card Society vol. 26 (6), : pages 204–206.

  2. (). ‘⁨⁩’. Journal of the International Playing-Card Society vol. 28 (5), : pages 258–261.

  3. (). ‘⁨⁩’. Journal of the International Playing-Card Society vol. 45 (3), : pages 183–185. Edited by Peter Endebrock.