Cabo: Card Game Rulebook

Cabo is a memory-based card game where players try to achieve the lowest score by remembering card locations and making strategic swaps.

Setup

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• 👥 Players: 2-10 players (can play with more, but it might get difficult to remember cards while waiting for your turn)
• 🃏 Deck: Standard 52-card deck (for more players, combine multiple decks)
• 📋 Deal: Each player receives 4 cards face down in a 2×2 grid
• 👀 Initial Look: Players may look at their two bottom cards only once at the beginning

Card Values

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Gameplay

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Turn Structure

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On each turn, a player must:

1. Draw a card from the deck
2. Choose to either keep the drawn card or discard it
3. If keeping the drawn card, swap it with one of their four cards
4. Discard the replaced card to the discard pile

Function Cards

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Some cards allow special actions when discarded:

7 or 8: KNOW YOUR FATE

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Look at one of your own cards and put it back

9 or 10: KNOW A FRIEND

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Look at one card from someone else and put it back

Jack: BLIND SWAP

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Trade the places of any two cards on the table without looking at them

Queen: LOOK AT YOURS & SWAP

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Look at one of your cards, then trade places with one card from someone else

King: LOOK AT BOTH & SWAP

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Choose any 2 cards on the table, look at them, then decide whether to swap them

🐷 Piggybacking

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All players can piggyback on other players’ discarded cards by adding an identical card to the discard pile as soon as they see it discarded (suit doesn’t matter).

If:

• ✅ Correct match: The card was remembered correctly and matches piggybacked card, the player now has one less card
• ❌ Incorrect match: The card wasn’t matching/remembered correctly, must draw two cards (one to replace the discarded card + one as punishment)

Action cards are then activated in the order of discarded cards

💡 Tip: Can play multiple cards at once, even during your own turn!

🔔 Calling Cabo

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A player may call “Cabo” at the start of their turn if they believe they have the lowest score. After calling Cabo, all other players get one more turn, then scores are revealed.

Scoring

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• Add up the point values of all remaining cards for each player

Winning

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The game typically ends when:

• A player runs out of cards, OR
• After one more turn following a “CABO” call, OR
• The deck runs out of cards

🏆 The player with the lowest score wins!