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Seven cards each with two players. Five cards each with three to six players. The rest of the deck goes face down in the middle as the pond.
Almost everyone asking this has been told seven and then found a source saying five. Both are right, for different player counts, and that is the whole of the confusion.
| Players | Deal | Dealt | Pond | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 7 cards each | 14 | 38 | Universal |
| 3 | 5 cards each | 15 | 37 | Contested: some deal 7, one deals 6 |
| 4 | 5 cards each | 20 | 32 | Universal |
| 5 | 5 cards each | 25 | 27 | Universal |
| 6 | 5 cards each | 30 | 22 | Universal |
Dealt plus pond always comes to 52. If your counts do not add up, someone has been dealt the wrong number, which is easy to miss with five or six players around a table.
Three players is the only count anyone argues about, and published rule sets split three ways: five cards, seven cards, or six.
We deal five, following the reference rule collections, which treat five as the deal for any game above two players. The American mainstream, including the largest playing-card publisher, deals seven to three players instead. At least one popular site deals six, which no other source uses.
None of the three breaks the game. A bigger deal means a smaller pond, so fewer cards are hidden and the game finishes faster. If your family has always dealt seven to three players, keep doing it; just agree before dealing rather than halfway through.
Everything undealt goes face down in a single pile in the middle. It is called the pond, or the fish pond, and it is what you draw from when an ask fails.
The pond size matters more than people expect. Two players leave 38 cards face down, which is nearly three quarters of the deck, so early asks fail often and the opening is mostly drawing. Six players leave only 22, so most of the deck is in hands from the start and trading begins immediately.
No, and this is the second most common misunderstanding. Nothing refills your hand to its starting size during play.
Your hand grows whenever an ask succeeds, because you take every matching card the other player holds. It shrinks by four every time you complete a book and lay it down, and by one whenever you hand cards over. A player doing well can find themselves suddenly holding almost nothing, which is a normal part of the game rather than a sign something has gone wrong.
If your hand empties while the pond still has cards, draw one and carry on. If your hand and the pond are both empty, you are out, and the remaining players finish the outstanding books between them. Books you have already laid down still count.
Other rule sets handle this differently, and it is worth knowing which yours uses. Some draw back up to the original hand size rather than a single card, some deal a fresh hand of five, and some end the game the moment any player runs out. Full Go Fish rules.
Seven cards each in a two-player game, and five cards each with three to six players. The rest of the 52-card deck goes face down in the middle as the pond. Sources agree on every count except the three-player deal, where some deal seven instead of five.
No. Seven is the two-player deal only. With three or more players you get five. There is also no rule keeping your hand at its starting size during play: it shrinks as you lay down books and grows when an ask succeeds.
No. Nothing tops your hand back up to seven during a Go Fish hand. That is a Rummy habit rather than a Go Fish rule. Your hand size moves up and down all game, and the only refill rule applies when your hand empties completely.
Seven with two players, five with three to six. If you are playing with a novelty Go Fish deck of matching picture pairs rather than a standard 52-card pack, follow the count on that deck, because those games usually use pairs rather than four of a kind.
Five each, so 20 cards are dealt and 32 remain in the pond. Every published rule set agrees on the four-player deal. The larger pond is why four-player games spend more of the opening drawing rather than trading.
Play Go Fish free for two to six players, where the deal is handled for you, or read the full rules and strategy guide.