Did you try Five Crowns, but you don’t want to go through the trouble of buying the pack?
Maybe you want to play a game like this, but you left the game at home.
Fear not! There’s a way to play it without the official cards, but while it’s not exactly the same, it’s pretty darn close.
Of course, the question is: how do we do it?
Answer: Read this article!
This is our guide on how to play Five Crowns with regular cards from start to finish.
Let’s dive in!
Learn how to play Five Crowns now!
From A to Z, we’ll help you make this fun and easy game a part of your regular rotation.
Table of Contents
Setting Up Five Crowns With Regular Cards
Five Crowns is typically played with two decks of 58 cards.
In these decks, there are cards from 3-King over five different suits (hearts, diamonds, spades, clubs, and stars).
There are also six Jokers in total.
To play Five Crowns with a normal deck of cards, we’ll need to simulate this.
You’ll need two decks of 52 cards.
Remove all the Jokers and the 2s.
What you should now have are two decks of 48 cards, excluding the 2s.
Shuffle these two together and then start dealing, first with three cards each.
Five Crowns Rules With Normal Cards
The game continues as it would normally.
Your goal is to have the lowest score by making books or matched cards.
Books are made either by sets or runs.
Sets are three or more cards of the same rank (i.e., three 7s).
Runs are consecutive cards in a row of the same suit (i.e., 4, 5, and 6 all of spades).
When your entire hand fits into these books, you lay down or meld.
After someone melds, each other player has one more chance to make as many books as possible.
Any unmatched cards count against them.
Every time it’s your turn, you may either draw from the stock or pick the top card off the discard pile.
Then, you must discard one card.
Points are tracked and added together at the end of every round.
Each round increases the number of cards you get (first round is 3, second is 4, etc.) until you reach thirteen cards.
This is the final round. The person with the lowest point total after the 13th round wins!
For more on counting points, head to the next section.
For the entire game, Aces are wild. They may fit in with any run or any set.
Each round, the hand wild changes.
The card matching the number of cards you get is the wild one.
For example, when you get seven cards in your hand, the 7s are now wild.
In the final round with 13 cards, the Kings are wild, leading to the game’s slogan:
“The Game Isn’t Over ‘Til The Kings Go Wild!”
Scoring Five Crowns With Regular Cards
Leftover cards at the end of a hand count against you.
Each one is worth its value, the round wild is 20 points, and the Aces are 50 points, so make sure to lay them down as soon as possible.
Use this chart for a quick reference as needed:
| Card Rank | Point Value |
|---|---|
| Three | 3 |
| Four | 4 |
| Five | 5 |
| Six | 6 |
| Seven | 7 |
| Eight | 8 |
| Nine | 9 |
| Ten | 10 |
| Jack | 11 |
| Queen | 12 |
| King | 13 |
| Aces (Wild) | 50 |
| Hand Wild (rotates for each hand) | 20 |
For more scoring help, a cheat sheet will go a long way.
Head on over to our Five Crowns Score Sheet for a FREE download PDF for playing with all numbers of players.
Number Of Players When Using Regular Decks For Five Crowns
Typically, Five Crowns says that they can go with 2-7 players.
And with two decks of 58 cards, this is totally doable.
For those playing with the regular decks and fewer cards, it’s not.
For this, I’d stick with 2-5 players, maybe 6.
If you find no one can go out with that many players, then play automatically ends when the stock pile is emptied.
At this point, all players must track their unmatched cards and record them on the score sheet.
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Commonly Asked Questions
How Many People Can Play Five Crowns With One Deck?
With one deck, I’d cut the number of players in half. With the actual Five Crowns, stick with 2-4 players. In a regular deck, stick with 2-3. The game does best with two decks.
Is Five Crowns The Same As Rummy?
Rummy-based games are a huge portion of the card games out there. Many, many games feature similar mechanics where you try to lay off cards by grouping them into sets and melds.
Five Crowns is a variation of the Rummy mechanic. The main differences are that Five Crowns:
- Includes wild cards
- Increases the number of cards per hand
- Rotates a set of wild cards
- Doesn’t allow players to lay off one another’s sets
- Uses a 5th suit
- Uses two decks
- Removes the Aces and 2s
- Includes Jokers
Can You Play Five Crowns By Yourself?
To play Five Crowns by yourself, simply play the game as you normally would, though you won’t be able to draw from the discard pile (Why would you? They’re your cards!).
As an incentive to “keep score,” I suggest counting all the points against you in your discard pile. It’ll be a lot, but you can compete against yourself or others to see who can get the lowest discard score.
Alternatively, you can just track the number of cards in the pile over the points.
How Many Jokers Are In Five Crowns?
Each of the decks in Five Crowns have 3 Jokers. This means there are a total of 6 Jokers in the game of Five Crowns.
In our regular-card variation, we use the 4 Aces, meaning there are 8 total. But in my opinion, having more helps avoid getting stuck because we don’t have the 5th suit.
Read more: Tips & Strategy For Winning Five Crowns
