What Is Sevens?
Sevens (also called Fan Tan, Parliament, or Card Dominoes) is a sequential building game. Players take turns adding cards to a shared layout that starts with all four 7s and grows outward — 6 below the 7, 8 above — until every card from Ace to King is placed. The player who empties their hand first wins.
What You Need
- A standard 52-card deck
- 3 to 7 players
Setup
- Deal all cards as evenly as possible.
- The player holding 7♦ goes first (or 7 of any suit in some versions).
How to Play — Step by Step
- On your turn, you MUST play a card if you can.
- Legal plays are: any 7 (starts a new suit row), a card one higher than the current highest card in its suit, or a card one lower than the current lowest card in its suit.
- Example: If Hearts has 7-8-9 built so far, you can add 10♥ (high end) or 6♥ (low end).
- If you have NO legal play, pass your turn. In some versions, you pay a chip to the pot when you pass.
- Continue until all 52 cards are placed on the table.
The Layout
Each suit forms a row. The 7 goes in the middle. Cards extend left (6, 5, 4, 3, 2, A) and right (8, 9, 10, J, Q, K). Eventually all 52 cards are laid out in 4 complete rows.
Winning
First player to play all their cards wins. In chip variants, other players pay 1 chip per card remaining in hand.
Strategy Tips
- Hold strategic cards that block progress — if you have the 6 and 8 of a suit but your opponents desperately need one, hold the 8 and force them to play around you.
- Don’t rush to play cards that help others go out before you do.
- Count which opponents have which missing cards by watching what they play and what they wait on.