Spoons is a children's card-matching and bluffing game also enjoyed by adults, Spoons is a fast-action, knuckle-punishing game requiring the players to pay attention to 2 things at once.

Play of the game

Setup

Place some spoons in the center of the playing area: one spoon less than the number of players, with the spoons set up like the spokes of a bicycle wheel. Deal four cards to each player and place the remainder of the deck to the dealers left.

Play

Player to the left of the dealer takes the top card from the deck, looks at it, and discards a card face down next to the player to their left, creating a discard pile. Each player's discards go into that player's discard pile. The player to the left repeats this process, either drawing a card from the top of the deck or from the top of the discard pile to their right, and, always discarding onto the pile to their left. Each player continues in turn after theplayer to their right. If the original deck is exhausted, then the player to the left of the dealer continues by using only the dealer's discards.

This goes on, often at ever-increasing speed, until a player gets 4 of a kind. Immediately after that player has discarded (and has only 4 cards) they are entitled to grab a spoon. Then the fun begins. As soon as one player has grabbed a spoon, all of the others should instantly do the same. Whoever does not get a spoon loses that hand.

Rules

If someone is first to touch a spoon, and it turns out that at that time no one actually has 4 of a kind, then the first toucher loses the hand.

Scoring

Scoring: the loser has a letter in the word "s-p-o-o-n-s" counted against them. That is, the first loss is "s", the second is "p", etc. When a player has accumulated all six letters in "spoons", they drop out of the game. At that time, the number of spoons is reduced by one. The game continues until only the winner is left.

Strategy/bluffing

Bluffing is encouraged, as you can reach for a spoon at any time as long as the spoon is not actually touched. This can have a distracting effect on one's opponents, or even cause someone to improperly grab a spoon prematurely.

One can also play without ever looking at the cards at all. Just pass the discards from right to left, keeping both eyes on the spoons.

Because players are focused on their own hand, when you get four of a kind, surreptitiously nab a spoon. They card-passing may continue for several seconds while you watch the fun.