Spooky and Creepy Cards Games for your Halloween Extravaganza

By Margie Pignataro © Gifts for Card Players

Anyone who has ever played any kind of a card game can attest that there seems to be some sort of connection with forces beyond our comprehension.  Traditionally, we call this luck.  It seems that sometimes something wants us to win and sometimes it wants us to lose.  It can be generous and it can be horrifying.  And it is always bewildering.

For Halloween, we will tap into this force and transform it into the ability to foretell the future and communicate with spirits.  Or, at least that’s what you can tell your party guests.

1.     Specter

This is a modified version of the card game War.  All of the cards are dealt to out to each person.  Everyone puts down a card simultaneously.  The person with the higher card wins all cards.  In the event of a tie, everyone puts down an additional five cards face down, then one card up.  The high card wins all the cards.

In Specter, the game begins with the group asking “Is anyone there?” or something like that.  When the cards are played, the higher card, the winning card, is the answer to the question.

All red cards mean Yes and all black cards mean No.

To create a deeper reading to each question, the type of card has an individual meaning.  For example:

Hearts means love, diamonds money, clubs action, spades communication.

The presence of individuals in the royal cards (King, Queen, Jack) can mean specific information.  The King could be a man of power, the Queen a woman of extreme persuasion and the Jack a knave or villain.

The numbers are easiest when seen as reflective of a scale: a two of diamonds could mean little money  versus a ten of diamonds which could be interpreted as very wealthy.

(Question: “Were you murdered?” Answer: “Queen of hearts” or yes I was murdered by a lover.  Alternately, Two of diamonds, not murdered, but died poor.)

The longer you play, the more detail you can glean.  The point is to be as imaginative as possible with the readings and be open to creativity.

2.     The Medium.

This is a spooky variation on Texas Hold’em, designed to create a dialogue with the dead and select one person as the medium.  Everyone sits in a circle.  A dealer deals the Corpse, being three cards face up in the center of the table.  Using the card reading details stated above for Specter, the three cards can be analyzed.  Greater weight is given to significant card combinations (three of a kind, a straight, etc.).

Then, each player is dealt two cards.  There are further interpretations between the Corpse cards and the players’ cards.  There will be those who begin to form coherent card combinations.  The person who has the best combinations is dubbed the Medium and is allowed to ask two questions.  The answer comes in the form of one card being dealt at a time.

3.     Old Bloody Maid.

This game can be played with an Old Maid deck, but can be used just as well with a regular deck of cards.  I highly recommend decorating a card to be the Old Blood Maid and making it as ugly and repulsive as possible.

Old Maid is played forming pairs.  All the cards are dealt out.  Pairs are removed and placed on the table.  Taking turn, each person draws a card from the person to their right.  The object of the game is to get rid of all of one’s cards and not being caught with the Old Maid card at the end.

So Old Maid isn’t so much a game that is about establishing a winner, but finding a loser.  In Old Bloody Maid, the person left holding the Old Blood Maid card must go into the bathroom, turn off the lights, and say “Bloody Mary” three times.

Margie Pignataro is a Fiction/Playwright/Academic Writer from the United Kingdom. She is the daughter of a blackjack player and the wife of a professional poker player and we look forward to many excellent articles giving us an inside view of the world of cards, casinos and gambling. See more of Margie’s articles on Great Bridge Links.