Do you sometimes find yourself forgetful? Do you have trouble concentrating while reading? Have you ever found yourself on your way to doing something but you can’t remember what it was at the moment?
These might be everyday problems caused by poor memory. If you are looking for a way to give your brain a boost and practice, consider card games, a fun yet effective way to improve your memory skills.
Card games are certainly a fun and relaxing activity, but they are also so much more. Regular card playing can provide stronger memory, concentration, and focus.
If you have enough time, grab a deck and invite your friends over. If you wish to do it all from the comfort of your chair, go online right now and check out these card games.
Hearts
The classic game of Hearts requires a solid memory in order to score some points, thus it can be a great practice for your neurons.
This game is usually played by 4 players and each of them gets 13 cards after randomly shuffling the deck. Players then exchange three cards among themselves. Remembering the cards you passed to a certain player gives you the opportunity to predict some of their moves.
We then placed cards at the center of the ‘board’ and every player needed to follow the previous suit. The player who uses the highest card in the correct suit scores.
Things can become tricky at the beginning of the next round because that is when another exchange of cards happens among the players. Be careful and concentrate if you don’t want to mix up which cards you have passed to your opponents.
Spades
The gameplay of Spades is like Hearts but with some additions to spice things up.
Rules about dealing and placing cards remain the same, only this time, we divide players into teams. At the beginning of each round, players bid on how many tricks they can pull. If they do not reach the number they bid on, they lose points.
In this game, we consider the spade to be the ‘main’ suit. This means if you play a spade over some other suit, you win that trick.
There are many things to consider while playing this game. Focus on scoring your bid and winning most of the tricks, but the main strategy that will get you to score some points is to remember which cards have already been played and are not in the game anymore.
Solitaire
In case you are looking for a way to have fun by yourself, Solitaire is the right choice for you. This solo card game is perfect for improving your memory skills since you can concentrate on the game with no distractions.
The point of the game is to reshuffle a deck by stocking cards into columns in descending order, from King to Ace. We must place the cards one onto another but must differ in suits. For example, we can place a Nine of Spades on top of a Ten of Diamonds.
The trick is to be careful with cards that are already in the game since you have a pile of uncovered cards that yet have to be placed.
Texas Holdem
Most people consider Poker a game of chance, but the same people keep winning Poker tournaments year after year. How is that possible? Well, this game requires so much more than luck.
The most popular version of Poker is Texas Hold’em which can be played by 2 to 9 players at the same time. Each player has two cards in their hands and the remaining 5 on the board and has to make the strongest combination of all other players in order to win.
There is so much action happening and so many aspects to analyze if you want to determine which two cards your opponent has. Remember all the previous hands he played, what happened during the hand, who placed the bet, who just called, and who raised the bet.
Does not sound simple anymore, right? And wait till you have more than one opponent in one hand. A bunch of brain cells must dance simultaneously in order to figure this out.
Once you go deeper into the world of card games, you will understand how complex they can be. There are 52 cards in one deck, you might have more than one opponent, some moves are time-limited, and not all the moves are possible at all times. But all this hard work you put your brain up to will pay off. This is why card games are perfect training for your brain.
