As retarded as this might sound there is a skill element to UNO and there for you can play better than your opponents. So let’s take a look at UNO card game strategy, well actually just a few strategy tips on how to play better.
If you got lost and are looking for UNO rules or want to play online in your browser, go to either the card games rules section or play online here, otherwise keep reading…
UNO STRATEGY TIP No.1 – BE QUICK
This one is simple. The quicker you are, the bigger your edge is. Why? Because you can dump off more cards by cutting in front of players when you have the exact same card and thus actually gaining a turn in relation to the players you jumped over. So practice those reflexes!
UNO STRATEGY TIP No.2 – CUTTING IN WITH DRAW CARDS
This is a dicey topic. You should obviously try to cut in if the player next to you has only one or two cards left, so that he gets filled up a bit. But you also have to be careful so that you don’t get the whole thing boomeranged back to you, because it really sucks if you have to draw a million cards.
A good thing to do is, if you have more than one draw card, to keep one or two and just cut in with one. That way if it boomerangs back to you, you can cut in again and screw the player next to you.
UNO STRATEGY TIP No.3 – DISCARDING
There’s a little strategy to discarding. You should obviously try to get rid of highest value cards(tip No.5), but you should also try to dump off cards that are probably going to give you the best chance to dump more cards when it’s your turn again.
There’s no way to predict what your opponents are going to do, but if you have a lot of one color cards you shouldn’t go changing the color(keeping the same color gives you the best chances that it will still be the same when it’s your turn again).
This kind of goes out the window if you suspect that a player with one card left has a certain color(for example he changed it to that color on his turn with a Change color card). Then you should try to change the color even if you have only one card of the color you are changing to.
UNO STRATEGY TIP No.4 – USING REVERSE AND STOPS
If everyone still has a lot of cards you can save up stops and reverse cards for better spots. Good spots are when you want to skip the action to players that have more cards then the rest, so that you give yourself the best chance to win and increase the chance that someone throws a Draw card to someone with very few cards.
UNO STRATEGY TIP No.5 – DUMPING POINTS
This is pretty obvious. When you have little chance of winning and someone is close to winning you should disregard Tip No.3 and just try to dump off as many high value cards as you can. This is also complementary to Tip No.4 in a lot of cases, since you can dump off points with Stop and Reverse cards while also using them to jump over or steer the action away from the player with one card left.
UNO STRATEGY TIP No.6 – KEEPING TRACK OF SCORE
Always keep track of current score, so that you know who you are playing again in the total rankings. That way you know who you should try to sabotage and who is not really important to you.
I hope you learned something! Enjoy playing and remember, there’s no more rewarding feeling than crushing your friends at UNO.
