How to Play Cabo (Easy Rules & Why Everyone Loves This Memory Card Game) -

Cabo Card Game Overview

How to Play CABO: your goal is to have the lowest total score when the round ends. The catch? You start the game with four face-down cards, and you are only allowed to look at two of the cards.

Your aim is to swap out your high cards so you have the lowest cards in play. You can even “spy” on your opponents’ hands, hoping they might have some low cards you can swap for later.

The Kamikaze Strategy (“Kamikaze”): If you somehow manage to end a round with exactly two 12s and two 13s in your hand, you score 0 points for the round, and every other player gets slammed with 50 points. It’s incredibly risky, but legendary if you pull it off.

Cabo Card Game Stats

Attribute	Details
Publisher	Bézier Games
Designers	Melissa Limes, Mandy Henning
Player Count	2–4 players
Play Time	45 minutes (though individual rounds last 3–5 minutes)
Age Rating	8+
Core Mechanics	Memory, Set Collection, Bluffing, Press Your Luck

How to Play Cabo

Teaching the game is a breeze, but don’t let that fool you—the mental memory component will keep everyone around the table completely focussed. Here is how a typical round unfolds.

1. Set Up Your Hidden Grid

First, you will deal four cards face-down in a row to each player. At this point, you can only look at two of your own cards. Make sure to lock those numbers into your brain, because you won’t get to look at them again for free.

2. Draw a Card and Trigger Abilities

Next, on your turn, you will draw a card from either the deck or the discard pile. If you decide to pull from the face-down deck, you may be lucky enough to draw a:

7 or 8 (Peek): Secretly look at one of your own hidden cards or to refresh your memory or the two you initially looked at (never had to do that! ;).
9 or 10 (Spy): Sneak a peek at one card belonging to an opponent to see what they are hiding.
11 or 12 (Swap): Switch one of your cards with an opponent’s card, which is perfect for causing a little mischief.

3. Swap and Shrink Your Hand

After that, you will choose to either discard your drawn card or exchange it with one of your face-down cards to lower your total score. If you are feeling confident and think you have matching numbers hidden in your grid, you can actually try to discard multiple cards at once to shrink your hand size down.

4. Call CABO and Take the Risk

Finally, whenever you feel confident that your cards total are the lowest between your opponents’, you can shout “CABO!” on your turn.

This triggers the endgame, giving everyone else one last chance to fix their hands. Once they finish, everyone flips their cards over. If your hunch was right and you have the lowest score, you walk away with a beautiful 0 points. But beware—if someone secretly beat you, you get stuck with your actual score plus a painful 10-point penalty.

How to Play Cabo Review

CABO is a simple, yet fun game with a fantastic memory challenge for young and old. I enjoy the:

Mind Games and Bluffing: Trying to keep a straight face when you can peek at your own or spy on someone else’s card is fun. You always try to look closely at their faces, thinking, Is it a good card or a bad card?
The 100-Point Reset: The game ends when someone crosses 100 total points. However, if you hit exactly 100 points on the dot, your score resets down to 50. This creates hilarious moments where players actively try to get more points just to trigger the reset.
Highly Portable: Just like Tinderblox, it’s a single deck of cards in a sturdy little box, making it a great tiny game or small game for travel.
The best thing I like is the memory challenge; the older we get, the more I realise that I don’t really play games with a memory challenge,, and it really does make me “think”. I really also enjoy it when someone has yelled ‘CABO’ early and I just happen to be lucky enough on my last turn to turn over a swap – of course my highest card will take one of their lowest cards, and hopefully I win.