Crazy Eights scoring: card values and examples

This guide uses the standard five-card-deal rules on our Crazy Eights rules page. It covers scoring after a hand. If you only want to find out who goes out first, a single hand needs no score.

Card values

Only the cards left in opponents’ hands are counted. Colour and suit never matter.

Card	Points
Eight	50
King, queen, jack or ten	10
Ace	1
Two through seven, or nine	Face value

Note the eight is worth 50, not 8, and the nine is worth 9. An ace is only 1 point.

Who scores

The player who plays their last card wins the hand and scores the total value of every card still in the other players’ hands. Nobody else scores. A last card can be an eight.

Worked example: four players

Dee goes out. The remaining hands are:

Player	Cards left	Points
Ana	8♣, K♦, 7♠	67
Ben	10♥, 9♦, A♣, 2♠	22
Cy	4♥	4

Dee scores 67 + 22 + 4 = 93 points. Add all opposing hands together; do not score only the largest.

Why eights are expensive

A single eight is worth more than any five other cards combined. The most five non-eight cards can total is 49 (king, queen, jack, ten and nine). So an unplayed eight is the costliest card to be caught with. Four eights alone are 200 points.

For example, a hand of 8♦, K♠, 9♣, A♥ and 4♣ is worth 50 + 10 + 9 + 1 + 4 = 74.

Blocked hands

If the stock is empty and every player passes in a row, no one can play. This site’s convention is to end the hand, award no points and redeal. The standard rules do not say how to settle a fully blocked hand, so agree this before you start.

Playing several hands

The standard rules give no fixed match target. A common house choice is to keep running totals and play to an agreed number, such as 100 or 200 points. This is not part of the rules. Choose the target before the first deal and keep one score column per player.

For tactics around those eights, see Crazy Eights strategy. For rules disputes, see common Crazy Eights mistakes.