How to Play Card Sharks

Find a deck of cards. Card Sharks is played with a standard deck of 52 cards. You will need two decks. You should have at least three people participating--two as contestants and one as the host.

Deal the cards. The cards should be dealt face down on the table--five cards from one deck and five from the other deck--into two rows. Preferably, you should have different backings on each of the decks, like red and blue.

Ask questions. Although on the TV show the questions were based on the audience response, you could deviate from this by substituting other questions, for example Trivia Pursuit questions. The first player would give an answer. If the answer is correct, the first player would play the cards, if he is incorrect, the other player would play the cards. This would alternate with each question giving each player a chance to play the cards.

Play the cards. The first card is turned over and this is the base card. You now have to predict whether the next card will be higher or lower. If you guess correctly, you continue to play the cards. If incorrect, all the cards are taken away except for the base card and filled in with new cards from the deck. If you guess all four correctly, you win that round. You can also freeze at any time and the card that you froze at will then become the base card.

Complete the round. The round is completed when one person has won two out of three games. The third round if needed only has three cards dealt for each player.

Set up the money round. Using money from another game, such as monopoly, you could than play the money round. The money round starts with the player having $200 on the first level and four cards. If he correctly predicts the way the cards come out he moves up to the next level, which has three cards and he is given another $200. He has to wager on each card and if he goes bust on the first level that is all right, he still gets the $200 on the second level. However, if he loses that the money round is over.

Buy the home version of card sharks and play it the official way.