![Pair It]()
Pair It — The Pirate Game
Single Player vs. Computer • Art from the real printed deck
Round 1 · First to 300 points
How I interpreted the rulebook (worth a skim before you play)
- Deck composition (108 cards): 64 regular cards (one of every Color × Number × Picture combo), 2 Gold Treasure, 4 Pirates, 5 Shipwreck (4 colored + 1 wild), 4 All Hands On Deck, 8 Fire the Cannon (4 colored + 2 wild "pass 1 card" + 2 wild "pass 2 cards"), 5 Draw 3 (4 colored + 1 wild), 10 Anchor, and 6 Reverse (4 colored + 2 Wild Reverse). Anchor was bumped up by one from the confirmed real count, by request.
- Fire the Cannon's wild variants: the "pass two cards" printing (what I used to model as a separate "Wild Cannon" card) is really just a rainbow-bordered Fire the Cannon variant — same family as the "pass one card" wild printing. Both are freely playable like Gold Treasure and All Hands On Deck: whoever plays one gives away 1 or 2 cards from their own hand (or fewer if they don't have enough left), then picks a color for the next play, same as All Hands On Deck.
- Wild Shipwreck & Wild Draw 3: both are rainbow-bordered, so they're freely playable. They still do their base job — Shipwreck makes everyone else draw a card, Draw 3 skips the next player and makes them draw 3 — but instead of locking the next play to the card's own border color, whoever played it picks the next required color.
- Wild Reverse: rainbow-bordered, so it's freely playable like Gold Treasure and All Hands On Deck — and just like Gold Treasure, the extra turn it grants can be followed by ANY card, no restriction. It also combos with the Anchor card regardless of the active color.
- Matching a regular card: you need TWO matching attributes with the active card — color + number, number + picture, or picture + color. Matching just one attribute alone isn't enough.
- When action cards can be played: only rainbow-bordered cards are wild — Gold Treasure, All Hands On Deck, Wild Reverse, and the wild printings of Shipwreck, Fire the Cannon, and Draw 3 — all freely playable on any turn. The colored (non-wild) printings of Pirates, Shipwreck, Fire the Cannon, and Draw 3 print with a solid colored border in the real deck, so — like colored Reverse — they must match the current active color border to be played.
- Same-kind match: a Reverse can always be played on top of another Reverse, a Shipwreck on a Shipwreck, a Fire the Cannon on a Fire the Cannon, a Draw 3 on a Draw 3, and Pirates on Pirates — regardless of color, and even if one of the two is a wild printing. This match is on top of (not instead of) the normal color rule for that family of cards.
- After a colored-border action card is played: Pirates, Shipwreck, Fire the Cannon, Draw 3, and Reverse don't carry a number or picture — just a color. So once one is on top of the discard pile, the very next card only needs to match that color (e.g. a green Fire the Cannon means any green card is playable next, regular or action) rather than needing to also match some older number/picture requirement.
- Pirates: read literally — "next player loses their turn and must steal one card from the hand of the player who dealt the card" — so the skipped player steals from whoever played Pirates (a small consolation for losing the turn), not the reverse. The bonus continuation turn this grants isn't forced, either: if you can't match the color Pirates just set, it doesn't make you draw — it just passes straight to the opponent.
- 2-player Reverse: with only one opponent, "reversing direction" has no real effect on turn order, so I implement it as an extra turn for whoever plays it (a common house rule for 2-player Uno-style games).
- Gold Treasure: a free play that grants whoever played it one bonus play right away (same player goes again) — and since it's rainbow/wild, that bonus play is wide open: any card can be played, no color/number/picture restriction.
- Fire the Cannon (colored): give a card to another player, then the next play must match Fire the Cannon's own border color — same color-only reset as Pirates/Shipwreck/Draw 3.
- All Hands On Deck / wild Fire the Cannon / wild Shipwreck / wild Draw 3 / Anchor+Reverse combo: whoever PLAYED the card (or completed the combo) gets to lock in a COLOR — only that color must match on the very next play. This applies whether you or the computer played it.
- Anchor ↔ Reverse, both directions: an Anchor is never legal alone — you need a Reverse card to "find a Reverse card to play this card," and playing that one Reverse unlocks ALL the Anchors currently in your hand at once. It also runs the other way: anytime you play ANY Reverse (colored or wild, whichever one it is), every Anchor in your hand must ride along with it in that same move — you can't play a Reverse and hang on to your Anchors.
- All Hands On Deck "slap": simulated as a timed reaction check against the computer, since there's no physical table to slap. Whoever is too slow to slap must steal a card from the player who played All Hands On Deck (not the other way around).
- "PAIR IT!" call and scoring-to-300: your latest rulebook text didn't include these, but you weren't sure yet if they're still part of the game — I've left them in for now. Tell me to remove them and I will.
- Real card art: every icon, border color, and card layout is cropped directly from the actual printed "Pair It" deck (the "Pair It Cards July 2026" proof folder — 109 scanned card faces). Card interiors, corner numbers, borders, and rule-card icons/wording now match the physical cards.
- Color for Pirates! / Shipwreck! / Fire the Cannon! / Draw 3: the physical deck prints the colored versions of these in all four border colors (with a matching colored parrot for Pirates!). The digital deck's data model didn't originally track a color for those kinds, so each colored copy is assigned one of the four colors (by card ID, one per color) — and since only rainbow cards are wild, that color is what must match the active color for the card to be playable, exactly like Reverse.
Quick how-to-play (simple version)
- Goal: be the first to play every card in your hand.
- Your turn: play a regular card that shares at least TWO of the three attributes (color, number, picture) with the active card. Nothing matches? Draw one card — play it immediately if it's now legal, otherwise your turn ends.
- Gold Treasure 💰: play it anytime, no match needed — then take another turn, and that next card can be anything too.
- Pirates 🏴☠️: matches by color only. The next player is skipped and steals a card from you.
- Shipwreck 🌊: the colored version matches by color; the rainbow "Wild Shipwreck" plays anytime and lets you pick the next color. Either way, everyone else draws a card.
- Draw 3 📥: the colored version matches by color; the rainbow "Wild Draw 3" plays anytime and lets you pick the next color. The next player draws 3 cards and is skipped.
- Reverse 🔄: the colored version matches by color; the rainbow "Wild Reverse" plays anytime. With only one opponent, it just gives you another turn (and after a Wild Reverse, that next card can be anything).
- All Hands On Deck! 🙌: play it anytime, no match needed — then everyone races to react to a "slap" prompt; whoever's too slow steals a card from you.
- Fire the Cannon 💣: the colored version matches by color and hands one card to the other player. Rainbow "Wild" versions play anytime and pass either 1 or 2 cards.
- Anchor ⚓: never playable alone — you need a Reverse card (colored match or wild) in hand to unlock it. Once you play that Reverse, every Anchor currently in your hand goes down with it.
- Same-kind rule: Pirates, Shipwreck, Fire the Cannon, Draw 3, and Reverse can always be played on a matching kind already on top of the pile, no matter the color.
- Winning a round: get down to your last card and play it — the round ends immediately.
- Scoring: when a round ends, the winner scores points for every card still left in the loser's hand: Regular cards = 10 pts, Pirates/Shipwreck/Fire the Cannon/Draw 3/Anchor/Reverse = 20 pts each, All Hands On Deck = 30 pts, Gold Treasure = 50 pts.
- Winning the match: new rounds keep being dealt until someone's total score reaches 300 points.