Five Crowns Review

Table of Contents

• Game Breakdown
• Five Crowns - Overview
• How to Play Five Crowns
• Five Crowns - Quick Reference
• Five Crowns - Tips and Tricks
• Five Crowns - Honest Review

Five Crowns - Overview

No one has won til the Kings go Wild! This is a quick favourite where you can either claim your win as ‘all strategy’ or your loss as others’ ‘luck’. You don’t have to be a casino player to get into this game; it is great for casual card players. Don’t count yourself out early; this is a point-based game where the underdog may emerge as the winner.

How to Play Five Crowns

The gameplay is relatively straightforward. One to seven people can play. You will need a piece of paper (or use our handy scoring tool) to keep track of who is winning. There are five different suits (yes, five, not four): spades, clubs, hearts, diamonds, and stars. The game has 11 rounds, which may sound like a lot, but trust us, it goes quickly. The first round starts with three cards, which means that cards with the #3 are also wild. Once this round is finished, it moves to 4 cards, and the 4s are wild. To win, you need to make the right combinations to ‘go out’. Then your opponents will be given one final opportunity to also ‘go out’.

To go out, you make matches or runs. Once you have six cards in your hands, then you can do different plays, e.g., you could have all six cards matching, or you could have two separate matches, or you could have one match or one run. The minimum play is three cards.

Steps

Step 1: Deal

Shuffle all the cards well. In the first round, three cards to each player. Each round the number of cards dealt with increases by one (look at our quick reference). So in the second round, deal four cards, in the third round deal five cards and so on until the last round where each player has to hold thirteen cards (yes this is a lot).

Step 2: Setup Card Pile

Place the remaining cards in the centre of the table and flip over the top card to start the discard pile.

Step 3: Play

The player left to the dealer goes first. The player starts by taking a card from the draw pile OR the discard pile (You can only take the top card … no peaking!) Consider what matches or runs you may have in your hand and whether you can go out. Complete your turn by discarding one card.

If you can go out. Start your turn as normal by picking up a card, then lay down your entire hand in matches or runs before discarding your last card. You can only use the number of cards that you had at the start of your round e.g., if you are in round one and have three cards, you cannot pick up the card and use all four to go out you must return one to the pile.

Step 4: Final Chance

Once someone has gone out all the other players have one more chance. They start the turn as normal and lay out any matches or runs before discarding. All unused cards will count toward your score.

Step 5: Scoring

Math time. Add up each players unused cards to their score and keep track.

Card Type	Value (Points)
Number Cards	Face value
Jacks	11
Queens	12
Kings	13
Jokers	50
Wild Cards	20

Note: Use our Five Crowns Scorer to keep track of scores if you don’t have pen and paper on hand.

Five Crowns - Quick Reference

Goal: Be the player with the lowest score at the end of the 11th round.

Each round, try to go out by making matches or flushes with the cards in your hand.

Wild Cards

Jokers will always save the day. There are also rotating wild cards, which are based on the number of cards dealt that round.

For example, in Round 3, when 5 cards are dealt, the 5s are wild cards and can be used to help you make matches or fill gaps in your flush.

Books (Matches)

The game refers to matches as books. This means three or more cards of the same value — it does not matter if they are in different suits.

For example, you could have:

• 8 (Clubs)
• 8 (Spades)
• 8 (Diamonds)

Or:

• Jack (Spades)
• Jack (Diamonds)
• Jack (Clubs)
• Jack (Hearts)

Any card in your match can be supplemented with a wild card.

For example, in Round 3 (where there are 5 cards in your hand), you could have:

• 5 (Spades)
• 3 (Hearts)
• 3 (Diamonds)

If you are lucky and have more than one wild card, you can use them in the same match.

Runs or Flushes

Runs or flushes consist of a sequence of three or more consecutive cards of the same suit.

Yes — the same suit. Do not let your friends cheat. This can be very difficult to do.

Round	Cards	Wild Cards	Plays to Go Out
1	3	3 + Jokers	Match three cards Make a run
2	4	4 + Jokers	Match four cards Make a run
3	5	5 + Jokers	Match five cards Make a run
4	6	6 + Jokers	Match six cards Play two matches Play a match (3 cards) and a run (3 cards) Make one run
5	7	7 + Jokers	Match seven cards Play two matches Play a match (5, 4, 3) and a run (3) Make a run
6	8	8 + Jokers	Match eight cards Play two matches Play a match and a run Make a run
7	9	9 + Jokers	Match 9 cards Play different matches Play a match and a run Make a run
8	10	10 + Jokers	Match 10 cards Play different matches Play a match and a run Make a run
9	11	Jack + Jokers	Match 11 cards Play different matches Play a match and a run Make a run
10	12	Queen + Jokers	Match 12 cards Play different matches Play a match and a run Make a run
11	13	King + Jokers	Match 13 cards Play different matches Play a match and a run Make a run

Five Crowns - Tips and Tricks

• Don’t Give Up We have seen the underdogs come out strong. Each round you start with a fresh hand, and you may end up with luck on your side.
• What Card Is the Wild? If you forget which card is wild, count the cards in your hand. Or look at our reference sheet.
• The Risk Play You may notice that when people are learning to play this game, they will try to discard the higher cards, as they are afraid of getting caught with these face cards in their hands. Try to use this to your advantage. Stock up on the high cards and see if your risk pays off (this may only work a couple of times before your friends catch on).
• Runs Runs are harder to achieve in the lower rounds, as they need to be from the same suit.
• Round 3 Having five cards in your hand is difficult because you need either five matching cards (with or without wilds) or five runs. We find that this is the longest round.
• Unable to Go Out and You Have a Wild Card? We recommend getting rid of this card in this situation, as it is going to cost you 20 or 50 points. Remember, you can always discard one card.
• Have More Than 7 People in Your Family or at Your Ultimate Board Game Night? Get two packs so everyone can play.

Five Crowns - Honest Review

This is a great game to play with your friends and family. What I like about this game is that it does not have too many rules or take too long for people to understand. It is fast-paced and gets people into a competitive mode quickly! This game is also great because your play is only affected by the person who goes before you, and you get the chance to scramble and cut your losses once someone goes out. This can be important as we have had many close calls where the winner has only won based on 1 point difference!

What is great about this game is that it only requires the cards and a piece of paper. So, no fiddly pieces you have to keep track of, you can only play what you have in your hand. Also, each round you start fresh; there is no disadvantage or advantage, which means everyone has a chance to come back and steal the win.

The only downside to this game, which we have had, is that the decks are so large that it is difficult to shuffle all the cards, and you definitely want to make sure that they are shuffled well! We would recommend getting a card shuffler.