UNO - Tips & Strategies

It might be tempting to throw down your big sets early on, but they are much more valuable late in the game. If you have four sevens, all a different color, you can play on almost anything, keeping you out of the position of needing just the right color to win (someone else will usually figure out what color you need and try to keep from playing it).

My nephew has a hard time holding all the cards and seeing them all. Rather than play open-handed, laying all the cards out face-up on the table, his parents held onto a 2X4-sized piece of packing styrofoam, cut a shallow slot along its length, and he sticks the cards into the slot, so he can spread out his hand without showing everyone his cards. Pretty simple solution to a “heavy-handed” problem. ;D

When someone plays a draw two, the next player can stack another draw two (Or any higher draw option) like a draw four on top, and the amount adds up until someone has to draw the total amount of acumulated cards.

Example:
Player 1: Plays draw 2
Player 2: Plays draw 2
Player 3: Plays draw 4
Player 4: Must draw 8 cards.

We always play this way in our home, and anybody we introduce this method to love it. It makes Uno much more engaging and fun for all levels of players, plus adds a little dash of strategy into the game.

Warning: Playing Uno this way, makes the standard by the book method rather mundane.

There are 2 major changes to the rules to play this:

Rule 1: All special cards can be stacked upon each other (Color does not mater), and draws are cumulative. Also, the game does not end until there are no more reactions to a special card. This means if a player plays a plain wild as thier last card, if the players can react to that and get some draws back to the potentially winning player, that player ends up drawing and not winning the game, and play continues.

Example:

Bob, Sally, Jane and Frank are all playing. It’s Bob’s turn, he plays a Draw 2, It’s now Sally’s turn, and rather than drawing two, she plays a Draw 4 Wild. Now its Jane’s turn and she’s looking down the barrel of drawing 6 cards. Jane decides to play a Skip, which means her play counts, then the skip jumps over Frank and we are back to Bob. Bob has no more special cards and ends up drawing 6 cards.

Rule 2: When any player plays a 0 card, all players pass their hands to the next player in the direction of play. As soon as a 0 is played, any other player, outside of turn order, may play another 0 to stop the rotation. As long as a 0 is on the top of the pile, any player may play a zero to start/stop the rotating of hands. Once the 0 plays have stopped, the person next next in line according to the direction of play, from the last person to play a 0 goes.

Example:

Bob, Sally, Jane and Frank are all playing. It’s Bob’s turn, he plays a 0, Frank would be passing his hand to Bob, and he only has 2 cards left (one of which is a 0) so he plays that 0 card to stop the rotation of hands (Remembering to say “Uno!”). Bob was prepared for this, and plays a second 0 card, nobody else elects to play a 0 card, and so hands pass Bob gets the new hand from Frank, but forgets to say “Uno!” and somebody catches him on it and he draws his cards. Play now continues at Sally, since Bob was the last to play a 0.

If you can.

Try to work things so that your ‘Uno’ card is a wild. If you have two cards and one is a red 2 and the other is a green 7 you might get something to let you dump one or the other.

But then you’re holding a red 2, it’s not super likely the card that comes to you at the end will be something you can play it on. So if possible, hold on to that Wild card, so if you’re lucky & skilled enough to get down to one, you’ll be able to get rid of it on your turn, no matter what.

Is it cheating if the rules say you can do it?

The rules officially say you can only play a Draw Four “can only be played when the player holding it does not have a card in his/her hand to match the color on the DISCARD pile.”

However, the rules also say “A player holding a Wild Draw Four may choose to bluff and play the card illegally, but if he/she is caught certain rules apply.”

Here’s the penalty:

“If a Wild Draw Four card is played illegally (that is, if the player holds a matching color to one that’s on the DISCARD pile) and the person who plays it is challenged, the hand must first be shown to the player who has made the challenge. If the Wild Draw Four card has been played illegally, the offending player must draw 4 cards. If the card has been correctly played, the challenger must draw 2 cards in addition to the 4. The challenge can only be made by the player who is required to pick up the 4 cards after the Wild Draw Four card is laid.”

You can use this rule to your advantage in two ways:

1. If you want to play a Draw Four, but have the discard pile color in your hand, you can still choose to play that card without actually cheating. You are taking a calculated risk, but it’s in the rules that you are allowed to bluff.

2. If someone else plays a Draw Four on you, you can challenge them and force them to show you their hand. If you are correct, you don’t have to draw the cards; if you are wrong (and they played the Draw Four legally), you have to draw 6 cards, but you were already drawing 4 anyway, so what’s another 2? Either way, you get to see the other player’s hand, which can be very useful information if they are close to going out.

When my girls play they have a nice little variant they taught us to end the game. It also makes coming in second a big deal.

As soon as someone goes out, the game ends and they get the win. But, the second place goes to the player who can get rid of all or most of their cards by themselves. Goes like this . . .

Using the last card played, each player plays the cards in their hands in front of them in separate piles. Each player plays cards that can legally be played on the previous card. If one player can get rid of all their cards, they get a point (we give 2 points for a win). It is amazing to see someone with 6 or 8 cards be able to play them all and someone with 2 not!

Kinda basic, but when you win you only win that round, instead of winning the entire game. To win the entire game you need to win 3 rounds total (not in a row).

A continuation to the stack draw two’s, my family plays a variant where not only can you stack draw twos, but you can also stack draw fours! these aren’t interchangeable, you can’t place a draw two on a draw four and let the next player draw six. the other piece to this variation is if you can’t play, you draw till you can or want to.

This is a house rule I read about online that I thought was a great idea. Basically if someone has the same card in their hand that is on top of the pile, they can take control of the game.

For example, if a 4-Red is showing and was just played by the person to your left, and you have another 4-Red, you can play it instead of play continuing as normal.