Let's Fish

With this game idea, I might be accused of being a communist! I don't actually have an agenda, I promise. (My beliefs are far too pragmatically-oriented to embrace communism as a large-scale social system.) That said, learning how to strategically make things more equal is a good life skill. It teaches the same "theory of mind", but in a much more positive way than trying to take something from someone.

Game Play:

As in "Go Fish", each player starts with 5 cards and a "pond" of cards in the middle. You don't look at each others cards or let anyone know what you have. The idea is to try to guess what others need.

The goal is to help everyone get the same number of matches. For those who crave a certain amount of order (aka control freaks), you can remove cards from the deck ahead of time to ensure an evenly split number of pairs. Otherwise, you can just make the aim to get as close as possible to equal pairs.

For each turn, you choose another player and say "Do you need a [card]?" If they need it, then you give yours to them. If they don't need it, they say "no, let's fish!" and you pick up a card. If the card matches what they need, you give it to them. Otherwise, it goes back into the pond.

The main strategy is to be aware of which players need more pairs and what they will probably need so you can give it to them.

[Cooperative Go Fish]