One-card
Korean One-card is a shedding game: match the top of the discard pile, dump your
hand, and be the first one out. What makes it One-card rather than Crazy Eights is
the attack ladder — five cards that force the next player to draw, stacking as
they go — and the 3, which cancels an attack outright.
The rules below are one canonical Korean ruleset. One-card is played differently in
every region, school and classroom; this version picks one set of values and sticks
to them, so everyone at the table is playing the same game.
Objective
Be the first player to legally empty your hand.
Setup
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Deck: 54 cards — a standard 52-card deck plus the black joker and the color joker.
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Dealing: 7 cards each in a two-player game; 5 cards each with three or more.
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Draw pile: the rest of the deck, face down.
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Starting discard: one card turned face up. If it is a special card (2, 3, 7, A,
J, Q, K or a joker) it is buried and another is turned, until a plain number card leads.
How to Play
On your turn you do exactly one of two things:
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Play a card that matches the top discard by suit or by rank — or that
matches the suit currently declared by a 7. A 7 and either joker may be played on
anything, and once a joker is on top of the discard anything may be played on it.
•
Draw one card, which ends your turn. Drawing is always available even when you
have a legal play, and a card you just drew is not immediately playable.
One card per turn, with one exception: the K.
The Attack Ladder
Five ranks force the next player to draw:
A of hearts, diamonds or clubs
Attacks stack. When an attack reaches you, you may answer it with an attack card
of equal or greater draw value. Yours is added to the running total and the whole
pile of trouble moves on to the next player. If you do not answer it — and do not
shield — you draw the accumulated total and the attack resets to zero.
The comparison is against the last attack card played, not the running total.
Three stacked 2s carry a total of 6, and a fourth 2 or any A is still a legal answer,
because it is answering the 2 on top of the pile rather than the 6 underneath it.
An attack card answers on its value alone — its suit does not matter, and neither
does the top discard.
While an attack is pending, nothing else is legal. Your only three options are a
qualifying counter, a 3, or taking the draw. No ordinary card, no J, Q or K, and —
despite its wildness — no 7.
Because A♠ and both jokers are unique cards, that single rule produces the whole
traditional hierarchy on its own:
•
A 2 is answered by a 2, any A, the A♠, or either joker.
•
An ordinary A is answered by another A, the A♠, or either joker.
•
The A♠ is answered by a joker only.
•
The black joker is answered by the color joker only.
•
The color joker cannot be answered at all — only shielded, or taken.
3 — Shield
Any 3, of any suit, cancels the entire pending attack. Nobody draws and play
passes on. A 3 can only be played this way while an attack is pending; the rest of
the time it is an ordinary card that has to match suit or rank.
Special Cards
•
7 — Wild. Playable on anything. After playing it you name a suit, and the
next player must follow that suit or play another 7.
•
J — Skip. The next player loses their turn. With two players, you play again.
•
Q — Reverse. Play changes direction. With two players this acts as a skip.
•
K — Extra turn. Take another turn immediately — play a second card, or
draw one if you have no legal play.
•
Jokers. Playable on anything, and they sit at the top of the attack ladder. A
joker may not be your winning card: if a joker is the last card in your hand you
must draw instead of playing it.
A joker is wild in both directions. It has no suit and no rank, so once a joker
is the top of the discard, any card may be played on it — the player who ate the
attack (or shielded it) is free to lead whatever they like, and the suit to follow is
set by that card. Without this rule a joker on top would match nothing and the whole
table would be stuck drawing until somebody happened to hold a 7.
Calling One Card
When you play down to exactly one card, you must call One Card! before your turn
ends. The game offers you the choice: call it, or stay quiet and hope nobody notices.
If you stay quiet, each opponent is offered the chance to catch you — one at a time,
starting with the next player to act and going around the table in the current
direction, before that player takes their turn. The first to call it makes you draw
one card, and that settles it; nobody else can call the same lapse.
This is not a race. The offer goes round in turn order, so nothing depends on who has
the faster connection or sits closest to the tablet.
Running Out of Cards to Draw
When the draw pile empties, the discard pile beneath the top card is shuffled back
into a new draw pile; the top card stays where it is. If both piles are empty and you
have to draw, you take whatever is left and the rest of the penalty is forgiven.
Winning
The first player to legally empty their hand wins the round. A hand cannot be emptied
by playing a joker. There is no elimination and no draw — every round has a winner.