Objective of 7 Ate 9
The objective of 7 Ate 9 is to be the first player to get rid of all of the cards from your pile.
Setup
- Shuffle all of the cards.
- Place one card face-up in the middle of the table. This card forms the discard pile for all of the players.
- Deal out the rest of the cards evenly to all of the players. If there are extra cards, place them on the bottom of the discard pile. Players should not look at their cards.
- Each player places their cards face down in a pile in front of themselves.
Playing 7 Ate 9
The dealer starts the game by yelling out “Go”. All of the players play at the same time as there are no turns. You can play cards as fast as you want.
Finding a Match
All of the players will grab cards from their own personal pile. You will take one card at a time. You can grab as many cards as you want as there is no limit to the number of cards that you can have in your hand at a time. Players can draw new cards into their hands at any time.
You will then look at the top card on the discard pile. The card will have a yellow number and a +/- number in the corners. You will try to find a card in your hand that is a solution to the equation on the card. For example say the card is a yellow four with a +/- 2 in the corners. This card can either be read as 4-2=? or 4+2=?. The answer to the equation is either two or six. You will look for a yellow two or six card in your hand.
Playing a Card
If you have a card in your hand that you can play, you try to play it to the discard pile as quickly as possible. You are trying to play a matching card before the other players. When you play the card you tell the other players the yellow number on the card you just played.
If two or more players call out a number at the same time, whichever player plays their card first gets to keep it on the discard pile. The other player has to take the card back into their hand.
You can play multiple cards to the discard pile in a row, but you cannot play all of the cards at the same time. You have to play one of the cards, then take the second card out of your hand to play it.
Standstill
Should no one be able to play a card, you will temporarily stop play. All of the players will place their cards face-down on the table.
The dealer then takes the bottom card from the discard pile and moves it to the top of the discard pile. The dealer then says go and the game resumes where it left off.
Playing Around the Corner
Sometimes one of the answers to top card on the discard will be lower than one or higher than ten. In these situations you have to “play around the corner”.
Higher Than Ten
Sometimes the yellow number plus the number in the corner will be higher than ten. In this case you will take the total and subtract ten from it. This number is one of the two numbers that you can play on the discard pile. For example say the top card is a yellow 8 with a +/- 3. If you use the + the total will be eleven minus one for a total of one. In this case you can either play a 5 (using the -) or a 1 (using the +)
Lower Than One
Other times the yellow number minus the number in the corner will be below one. In this case you will add ten to the negative number you get from subtracting. For example say the top card on the discard pile is a yellow one with a +/- 2. In this case the total would be negative one. When you add ten to the total you will get nine. In this situation you could either play a yellow three or a nine.
Winning 7 Ate 9
The players will keep playing cards to the discard pile.
When you are down to your last card, you can play it at anytime even if it doesn’t match the top card on the discard pile. The first player to play all of the cards from their pile wins 7 Ate 9.
Single Player Game
If you are playing the game single player, you want to try and play all of the cards to the discard pile as quickly as possible.
Playing 7 Ate 9 With Younger Children
If you are playing with younger children, you can choose to use variant rules in order to make the game easier to play.
First you can choose to play the game where players take turns playing cards. This way children are not forced to race to try and find a matching card.
You can also choose to ignore the “playing around the corner” rules. In this case you will ignore the symbol that takes the number below one or above ten. You can only play a card using the other symbol.
7 Ate 9 FAQ
If you have any questions about how to play 7 Ate 9, leave a comment below on this post. I will try to answer any questions asked as best and as quickly as possible.
Components
- 73 cards
- Instructions
Year: 2009 | Publisher: Out of the Box Publishing, Play Monster | Designer: Maureen Hiron | Artist: Christine Hoffmeyer, John Kovalic, Cathleen Quinn-Kinney, Małgorzata Wójcicka
Genres: Card, Family
Ages: 8+ | Number of Players: 1-4 | Length of Game: 5 minutes
Difficulty: Light | Strategy: Light | Luck: Light
For more board and card game rules/how to plays, check out our complete alphabetical list of card and board game rules posts.
