A press-your-luck card game that was nominated for a prestigious Game of the Year award, and calls itself “The Greatest Card Game of All Time” right on its own box. That’s a lot to live up to – let’s dig in and see if it deserves the hype.

Game Name: Flip 7 (2024)
Designer:  Eric Olsen
Artist: O’Neil Mabile
Publisher: The Op Games
Player Count: 3-18 Players
Playing Time: 20 minutes
Review Date: 8/20/2025
Reviewed By: Dan

Upfront Disclaimer: I purchased my own retail copy of Flip 7. No free copy was provided for review, and I’ve had no contact with the publisher regarding this game. All opinions contained within are my own unbiased thoughts.

Game Overview

There is a restaurant not far from where I live that has a giant, permanent sign across the outside of the building proclaiming that they have “The Best Ribs in the City!”. It’s been there for decades now, with that same sign proudly displayed across the side of the entire building. I haven’t been to the place in many years now, and probably won’t return again for one simple reason: they made a bold claim, and it’s a complete lie. Not only do I not think they have the best ribs in our city, but I can name two other places within just half a mile that are massively better by overwhelming popular opinion. It doesn’t help that I think most of the rest of their menu isn’t great either, but I have to stare at that stupid giant lie of a sign every time I drive past and remember again how much I don’t like their ribs.

So along comes the annual prestigious Spiel des Jahres board game awards for 2025, and I saw Flip 7 listed as one of the nominees. Not a game I was familiar with, but it’s basically just a box of cards and very cheap (it’s about $8 at the time of me writing this), so it was a no-brainer to give it a shot. And right there on the box itself, written not only on the front of the box but on two of the sides as well, is a bold proclamation: “The greatest card game of all time!”. And my mind begins to wonder – am I holding greatness in my hands, or will this be another case similar to the Rib restaurant near my house where I leave disappointed?

The game itself just arrives in a little cardboard box with a hangtag on the top, which has a nice shiny reflective exterior that will help catch your eye a little bit when you pass by it on a board game shelf. The contents inside are 96 bridge-sized cards and one tiny double-sided fold-out rule sheet that will take you approximately two total minutes to read in the entirety. The cards don’t have any fancy artwork on them, but they are bright and colorful, and VERY easy to read at any distance with large printed numbers and words on them. There are no score-sheets included, and this is a game where you will need to be doing some addition and tallying scores frequently between each round, so you’re going to want to grab your own pen and paper, or follow their QR code to download some printable scoresheets online. But trust me, you won’t need anything fancy to help organize the scores – this is a very basic game.

The objective of Flip 7 is super simple – be the first player to score 200 (or more) points. The way you accomplish this is by a press-your-luck mechanic where one player acts as the dealer each round, and essentially asks each player in clockwise order if they want to stand or hit, blackjack style. The majority of the cards in the deck just have the numbers 0 through 12 printed on them, and each card is worth that number of points when dealt to you. But if you decide to hit, and are dealt a card you already have that round, you are immediately eliminated from the round and get zero points. And that’s where things get interesting – in the deck, there are twelve of the number 12 card, eleven of the number 11 card, all the way down to just one of the numbers 1 and 0. So getting dealt a 12 card is wonderful in terms of points – but you also know that 12 is the most common card in the entire deck, and your odds of getting dealt another one are fairly high. So you can stand at any time, and once you do, you lock in your points for that round – or press your luck and keep taking more and more cards to build up a higher score. And should you, in any single round, collect seven different numbered cards without a single repeat, you have achieved the namesake FLIP 7 – the round immediately ends for all players, you earn the score of your 7 combined cards plus a 15-point bonus on top. Spoiler alert: it’s fairly hard to actually achieve a Flip 7, and you’re usually better off left trying this if you have fallen way behind and have a huge gap to try and cover.

There are special cards mixed into the game as well, which can make things more interesting. You can draw a freeze card, which immediately ends the round for you and acts the same as saying “stand”. There is also a “Flip Three” special card, where you immediately have to take a hit from the top 3 cards on the deck with no opportunity to stand – this one usually ends up being either VERY good for you, or VERY bad, and not usually anything in between. And lastly, possibly the most valuable special card is “Second Chance”. This is the one special card that you keep in front of you when dealt, and you can use it to cancel out a duplicate card you receive. So essentially, once you have this card, you can really stretch out how far you press your luck, knowing that you’re safe from the next duplicate card you receive. But there is still some risk – this card doesn’t allow you to cancel out a “Freeze” card for example, so you can still end up with a low scoring round.

My Thoughts

I’ll cut to the chase – no, I don’t believe this is the “greatest card game of all time” as the box claims. I do however believe that it is a very fun game, and one I would heartily recommend.

It has all of the hallmarks of a fun card game – it’s super quick to teach, it takes practically zero time to set up apart from giving the deck a good shuffle. I found the premise fun, and the chosen threshold of 200 points to win the game makes it feel like it’s about the perfect length of time – their claim of 20 minutes is about accurate. You could toss the cardboard packaging, wrap the cards in a rubber band and bring/play this game just about anywhere, anytime. It also REALLY nails the Press-Your-Luck mechanic – you will struggle with every single hit-or-stand decision because it seems oh so tempting to just ask for one…more…card. And I love that the chase to achieve an actual Flip 7 also allows players who have fallen far behind a chance to catch up if they really take some risks. And lastly – the game is $8, that’s a price point where it almost feels like a no-brainer to recommend giving this one a shot.

Where Flip 7 falls short of “greatest game ever” conversations for me, is just the fact that I do feel like after 2-3 back-to-back plays in a row, I am more tired of the game than I would expect. Some of my favorite card games ever that quickly jump to top of mind are Monopoly Deal, and also the recently reviewed “Payback” from Karel Psota. I could probably sit down at a table with a group of friends and play either of those two games a dozen times in a row, and I’d still be hoping we continued playing more. I just don’t get that same feeling from Flip 7 though, because I don’t feel like each round has enough variation. Flip 7 feels like a game that I will bring along with me once every few months to play a round or two, and then probably forget about for a few months until I need a really fast game again.

Verdict:

A very fun little card game that will certainly retain a spot on my gaming shelf (or space in my wife’s purse when the family goes out to a restaurant), but it definitely falls shorts of its own “greatest card game of all time” claim. That being said, at $8, it’s an enjoyable quick party/family game that works well at any player count and is an easy recommendation.

Likes:

• Plays fast with very little downtime, keeps people engaged
• It’s the quintessential version of the “Press Your Luck” mechanic; if you like PYL games, you will LOVE this
• Handles an insanely wide player count and it’s fast enough to work well with a huge group
• It’s very cheap, and it has a very small footprint to store and to play – take it anywhere!

Dislikes:

• Not “the greatest card game of all time”, the awards/overhyping may leave you feeling a little underwhelmed
• Good for occasional play, but probably not something you’ll want to play dozens of times in a row
• You’ll need to have pen/paper, a smartphone, or some other way to track scoring