Official Rules
The custom deck consists of cards of 4 suits (colors): red, green, blue, and yellow. The ranks in each suit are 0-9. There are 3 "honor" cards in each suit, labelled "skip", "draw two", and "reverse". There are special black cards, "wild" and "wild draw four". There are two copies of each regular card, except for the 0s, which only have one per suit. There are four "wild" and "wild draw four".
To start the game, seven cards are dealt to each player, and the top card of the stock is exposed to start the discard pile. If the exposed card has a special ability, it is treated as if the dealer played that card, and the special effect occurs. (I.e., skip, draw two, reverse, wild, or wild draw four.)
At each turn, a player may play a card from their hand that matches the suit or rank of the top exposed card, or play a wild or wild draw four. If a player has no legal card to play, that player draws the top card of the stock, and may either play it or place it in his hand. A player may choose to draw the top card of the stock even if they have a legal play (known as reneging), but after having drawn the top card of the stock only that card may be played that turn. (A player may intentionally do this when desperate to keep another player from going out.) After playing a single card or drawing, the next player clockwise takes a turn, unless a reverse is in effect.
The hand ends when one player player plays all their cards. When a player plays down to only one card, they are required to say "uno". If they fail to say uno, then another player may force them to draw two penalty cards. If nobody notices the failure to say uno before that player takes another turn, there is no penalty. There is no penalty for falsely accusing someone of not saying "uno".
Special cards
- Draw two. The next player must draw two cards and lose their turn. There is no defense; the draw is mandatory.
- Skip. The next player must skip their turn.
- Reverse. The order of play is reversed from clockwise to counterclockwise, or from counterclockwise to clockwise. If there are only two players, reverse acts as a skip.
- Wild. The person playing it names a color, and the next legal play must be that color, unless another wild is played.
- Wild draw four. Like a wild, but the next player must draw four cards and skip their turn.
Scoring
At the end of each hand, each player counts the value of the cards left in their hand. The cards numbered 0-9 are worth the amount on the card. (In some games, the players agree to count 0 cards as worth 10.) The honor cards are worth 20 (skip, reverse, draw two). The wild and wild draw four are worth 50. There are several different scoring methods:
- The player who goes out scores the combined total of all other players' hands. The other players score nothing. The goal is to accumulate as many points as possible. The winner is the first to 500 points, or after a certain number of hands or amount of time.
- The player who goes out scores the average of the values of all other players hands.
- Each player scores the amount of the cards left in their hand. The person who goes out scores nothing. The goal is to have the smallest score possible. Under this method, a player who goes out but has a small score can has still done well. There are several ways to determine a winner.
- Play for a specified amount of time or number of hands.
- End the game when one player reaches 500, as in the game of hearts.
- Each player who reaches the target score is eliminated, and the remaining players continue.
Common variants
- Jump-in Rule. If you are holding a card that matches the previously played card, both in suit and rank, you may play it even if it is not your turn, and it is treated as if it were your regular turn. Play continues from you and the intervening players were effectively skipped. This rule speeds up the game, especially when there are many players, and forces players to pay attention when it isn't their turn. Notice that it is always a race between the person whose legal turn it is and any player who may have a jump-in card. After a draw to or wild draw four, you may wait until the person has drawn their penalty cards before playing the jump-in card.
- Cannot contain current color when playing wild draw four. You may not play a wild draw four unless you have no cards that match the current color. If you are playing the jump-in rule, you may play a wild draw four even if you hold cards of the color called.
- Infinite draw. If you choose to draw (or are forced to draw) a card from the stock, you continue to draw until you have a playable card. If necessary, the discard pile is reshuffled and recreated as the stock pile.
- Killer Uno. This variant is, as the name implies, faster and more aggressive than official play. There are four additional rules (see below). It's earliest confirmed attribution is to Keith Chin-A-Loy and Mark Bomgardner in December 1987.
- Infinite draw (see above)
- Jump-in (see above)
- Cumulative draw cards. If a Draw Two card is played and you have another Draw Two in your hand, you may play it making it draw four to the next player. If they have a Draw Two in their hand, they may play it making it draw 6 and so on until someone cannot play a Draw Two and must draw. Likewise, a wild draw four may be cumulative on another wild draw four. Draw Twos and wild draw fours are not cumulative.
- Zero. On any play of a zero card, all players to pass their hands in the direction of play. Play continues as usual. Note that playing a zero as your last card is a losing strategy since you inherit your neighbor's hand.
Similar Games
Uno is a member of the stops family of card games. The stops family of card games consists of games where the objective is to get rid of all your cards while preventing the other players from getting rid of their cards.
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