Are there any games with depth similar to Dominion or Puerto Rico that can be played with standard1 playing cards? More than 1 deck is fine. A good answer should have plentiful, diverse opportunities for strategy and analysis; flexibility in number of players, friendliness to new players, lack of empty spaces during the game-play, and general intensity are all a plus.
1: 4 suits, 12 cards each
I generally enjoy trick-taking games as they involve a bit more strategy than "pick a card that's the same color". Examples include Hearts, Spades, Pinochle, Oh Hell, etc.
The interesting elements to me are keeping track of what cards have been played, what order to play your cards in to achieve your goal, and trying to figure out your opponents' strategy.
Bridge.
This lacks in flexibility in number of players, and friendliness to new players, but it has a lot of strategy once you get the hang of it.
Card games with traditional decks of cards mostly fall into either trick-taking games (Whist-family games like Bridge, Pinochle, Euchre, Spades, or Hearts) and melding games (Rummy-family games like Gin, Go Fish, or Canasta). There are exceptions, but they are less well known and will likely not meet the accessibility criteria because of the learning curve.
In general, from my experience trick taking games are quicker to learn and play faster, and strategy is largely confined to individual hands (although your success in each hand will affect how you play the next). The king of trick-taking games is Bridge, and for the devoted student will be very rewarding, but learning the subtleties of bidding and play can be daunting, and expert play requires a partner that you have practiced with. Spades is more approachable to the beginner, has a fair amount of team strategy, and as has been noted has the potentially thrilling and aggressive play.
Melding games are equally varied in style, but in general tend "feel" longer and more strategic. My personal favorite is Canasta, popular enough in the 50s to challenge Bridge for the most popular four-handed game. Played with two decks of cards it has many strategic options around when to go out, what styles of melds to make, and taking the entire discard pile (risky, but potentially very lucrative!) On the other end of the spectrum is Cribbage, which is a fast-playing melding game which can be played either four- or (more commonly) two-handed. Not a lot of strategy across hands, and a fair amount of luck, but quick to learn and has some interesting strategic choices as well.
Ultimately, you will not find games with traditional packs of cards to be as deeply strategic as a game like Dominion, simply because there is less variability in play, and early missteps are less likely to punish you in the end-game. If you want to find card-based games that are interesting yet approachable, I recommend looking at a number of custom card games such as Fluxx, Bottle Imp, Citadel, or Innovation (a new game for 2010 that's garnering a lot of praise).
I have a friend who plays a lot of Euchre. He's a hard-core card player -- always has a deck in his pocket -- and this is his favorite game. I only played a few times with him, but it was lots of fun. There's a lot of strategy in trying to figure out which cards to play when, and in what order. You're playing with a teammate (across the table), so there's that aspect of the strategy too (since you can't really communicate with them without your opponents overhearing).
He plays Sheepshead too (can't post the link 'cause I don't have enough reputation, it's on Wikipedia). I never played with him though, so I can't speak to it. I think it's similar to Euchre.
Truco is very popular in Argentina, although it is played with a spanish deck. Playing 2 vs 2 or 3 vs 3 it is much better than 1 on 1.
I grew up playing Egyptian Ratscrew in high school, and I've never met a single person who didn't have a blast playing it.
Fast paced, multi-player, and anyone can join or be eliminated, and even "respawn" by rejoining the game at random. excellent, exciting game :)
I spent 10 years posting one free print-and-play game each month. Many of these games used simple, commonly found components – like a standard Poker deck. Of those games, there are a few that may fit your needs:
• Up 'N Over ( http://www.invisible-city.com/play/24/up-and-over ): 2 to 5 players. Take turns playing to a stack in the center, trying to get the sum to 21 on your turn, or force the player to your left to go over 21. Royal cards are ), -2, or -4 points. Aces are 1 or 11. Has more strategy than you'll initially think.
• Dungeon ( http://www.invisible-city.com/play/392/dungeon-update ): 2 to 4 players. Play cards in sequence to escape from a dungeon. Play cards on other players as monsters, or to cause cave-ins.
• Uncontrolled Squid ( http://www.invisible-city.com/play/211/uncontrolled-squid ): 2 to 8 (or more) players. Team-based bidding game.
• Druid's Duel ( http://www.invisible-city.com/play/470/druids-duel ): Bluffing / Strategy game for 2 to 4 players. Pick a form and a strategy, reveal your choices, and figure out what happens.
I hope you find something you like!
If you have three players, David Parlett's Ninety-Nine is a terrific trick-taking game with an elegant gimmick: the suits correspond to numbers, and you must declare how many tricks you intend to take each hand by secretly discarding three cards. This makes figuring out how to bid what you want to bid almost as hard a problem as figuring out what your bid should be and how to make it.
Another unusual and ingenious game is Robert Abbott's Eleusis, one of the few real inductive-reasoning games. (Zendo, which borrows liberally from Eleusis, is another.) In this game, one player formulates a secret rule, and the other players ask questions, by playing cards, in order to determine what the rule is. It can be really, really hard - a fairly easy rule to guess is "red cards are only legal if played immediately after cards whose rank is even; black cards are only legal if played immediately after cards whose rank is odd."
If you're looking for speed and intensity, along with being beginner friendly, there are a lot of fast card games out there. Nertz allows for massive amounts of parallel play with each player playing from their own standard deck of cards and into the common area (easier if the cards have different backs).
There are also dozens of variations of fast paced Uno type games that can be played with a regular deck of cards which are sped up by allowing for out of turn plays. Mao is an Uno variation where players are required to be silent during play, and the winner of each round creates a new unspoken rule which they can enforce by penalizing unwitting rule breakers with extra cards.
A similar fast paced game is Egyptian Ratscrew, but elimination of players may not be as inclusive as desirable for a group.
My friends and I used to have a lot of fun playing Kimps on the bus - it is not a game of strategy, but of psychology.
The rules are simple: You play in pairs of two (usually for four people). You each get four cards. Then the dealer throws four cards on the table, and everyone trades cards from their hand for ones on the table, trying to make four-of-a-kind. There are no turns - everyone just grabs whatever cards they want, as fast as they can. When everyone is done with the cards on the table, they get discarded and four more are placed down.
When someone finally gets four-of-a-kind, they have to get their partner to say "Kimps!" (You are allowed to discuss signals ahead of time). If you believe someone on the other team has four-of-a-kind, you need to say "Stop Kimps!" before that person's partner can say "Kimps."
If someone says "Kimps" and their partner has a four-of-a-kind (or they say "Stop Kimps" and either of the opponents has four-of-a-kind), that team wins. If they're wrong, the other team wins.
The psychology comes from: what cards did each person already pick up? Are they actually collecting those cards, or are they trying to trick me? How can I trick my opponents? If someone is doing something suspicious, do they have Kimps, or are they trying to fool me? You have to make this decision fast, because if you notice the signal, chances are their partner did too!
Whist, specifically, has always been my family's favorite. Definitely plenty of strategy, plus massive differences between 2-person, 3-person and 4-person whist. Highly recommended.
The problem with most of the other games listed is either there isn't enough strategy or they just plain aren't fun.
We play a lot of cheat. There's a fair amount of strategy that can go into it, but it's dead easy to learn. For 3-8 players.
There is another trick-game which hasn't been mentioned which I find very satisfying from a strategic point of view.
Briscola chiamata, a 5-player variant of briscola, has rules and a basic strategy easy enough to get started in 5 minutes, but the trump bidding makes the game unique, and the blind partnering mean you have to watch every move carefully, leaving no empty space and adding a “detective game”-like dimension.
(you don't really need a 40-card deck: you can just take a standard deck and take out the 8s, 9s, and 10s).
I know the 5 player requirement is a bit tough, but it's worth it!
When I find myself with an odd number of friends (so we are 4 or 6 in total) I prefer instead to play Pinnacola. It is a rummy-derived game.
You play it with two 52-cards decks, deal 13 cards to each player, then plays just like Rummy, with a number of differences:
And that's it.
Throughout college, my friends and I loved playing this 5-player variant of Rook:
