The classic family game of pairs: take a card from your neighbour each turn, throw out your pairs, and don't be the one left holding the odd queen.
Old Maid uses a standard 52-card deck with one queen taken out (here, the queen of clubs). That leaves three queens, so one of them can never be paired. It is the Old Maid.
All 51 cards are dealt to the four players. Everyone throws out any pairs they hold, meaning two cards of the same rank, such as two 7s or two Kings.
The player to the dealer's left offers their hand, fanned face down, to the next player on the left, who takes one card without seeing it. If it makes a pair, the pair is thrown out. Then that player offers their hand to the next player, and so on around the table. You always take a card from the player on your right.
When a player runs out of cards they are safe and drop out. The game goes on until one player is left holding the single queen. That player is the Old Maid and loses the deal.
Old Maid is a 19th-century American card game, presumed to come from an old European gambling game in which the loser paid for the drinks.
Its rules were first recorded by Eliza Leslie in a book for girls, published in America in 1831 and in England in 1835. In her version three queens were taken out, leaving the fourth as the Old Maid. The modern game removes just one queen.
Similar games are played across Europe, including Black Peter, whose rules were recorded in 1821, and the French Vieux Garçon ("Old Bachelor"), recorded in 1853. The phrase "old maid" is older than the game, and was an old term for an unmarried woman; when boys played, the game was sometimes called Old Bachelor.
Old Maid is a free browser version of the classic family card game, played against three computer players, with a daily match and online leaderboards. There's nothing to download and no sign-up.