Euchre is massively popular in the Pittsburgh area. This, pinochle and poker are the big social card games.
It’s been a LONG time since I played that. I have forgotten all the rules since, but I remember having an amazingly fun time with it.
I still play Sheepshead a couple times a week. I’d have to agree with N91WP–it is “unusual,” especially given all the variations that are played. We have 3-handed, 4-handed, 5-handed, 6-handed, 7-handed and 8-handed varieties as well as some 2-deck versions. Here’s a link to our national organization. sheepshead
A very obscure trick taking game called forty-fives.
It’s common only in the Merrimack Valley area of Massachusetts, where my mother and maternal grandparents are from. Odd that this should come up and inspire me to join, as my uncle (son of said grandparents) is in town and he and I and the grandparents do practically nothing else on the rare occasion he comes to visit. It’s a deeply strategic game, wether played in partners or “cut-throat”. I tend to be more of a hold-em man, but it’s one of few activites I can share with my elderly grandparents and when my uncle is in town, it’s the preferred form of socialization.
NO Kibbitzing!!! (does that mean anything to anyone?)
Someone mentioned dice… Played a prepackaged game called Bupkis religiouy in middle school, and have forgotten all else. Anyone?
Been lurking for a year, and reading Cecil for about 3 years. This is by far the most eclectic and intelligent group I’ve found on the net. Cheers!
In highschool it was all ‘Asshole’
In Turkey they play ‘Pisch-dee’, I liked it and have now forgotten the rules.
My family plays a two-player game called “Skopa” that requires the player to try to collect the 7 of diamonds, 6s and 7s, the most cards, and the most diamonds. Each is worth a point and you play several hands, until you get 21 points for a win. My sister learned it years ago from her Tunisian boyfriend and I’ve never met any one else who has even heard of it.
My aunt was the Queen of Penny-Ante Gambling Card Games. as soon as we’d figure one out, she’d find another. In succession we had:
**Michigan Rummy
Thirty-One
Escalara**
Escalara had an enduring popularity, and that was the last one she tried out.
Ugh. I hate Hand & Foot. It’s a rummy variant that dramatically increases the luck factor and has one obvious optimal strategy.
IIRC, Tichu is Zheng Shangyou packaged up for western audiences.
Since the original post mentioned Uno and Rook which have their own decks so there’s many, many games I could mention that in the U.S. would be obscure outside of the community of people who play boardgames but are extremely well known within (like Tichu 
). Sticking to games that are just a deck of cards with minimal other components:
San Juan - It’s a streamlined version of the board game Puerto Rico where players attempt to build a strong Caribbean colony. The core of the game is that on each turn the player selects a special action that they can initiate on their turn from a small stack. No player can take the same one but for most of them many players can benefit and the challenge is in getting the most benefit for yourself while minimize the benefits for the other players.
Bang - The game is about a shoot out in a western town. One player is the sheriff and the rest are either deputies (who win along with the sheriff if the other players are eliminated), outlaws (who win if the sheriff is killed), or the renegade (who wins if they’re the last person alive). The only role that is known is the sheriff so the game is about working out who is on your side and who isn’t.
Lost Cities - In this game two players compete to build increasing sets of cards in five suits. The key is in the scoring because while not competing to build a set in a suit gets you nothing, failing to build enough gets negative points.
We used to play Screw your Neighbor back in junior high. I remember it as being like Uno, with a variety of additional rules designed to irritate other players. One of the ones I remember is that whenever anyone asked a question, any other player could declare, “Take a card for being clueless!” and the asker would have to comply. The question could be about the game (“Whose turn is it?” “What does a six do again?”) or not (“Hey, could you hand me a Coke?”) New players would sometimes get disgusted with the game and say, “Who? What? When? Where? Why?” and so on, drawing a card each time until they held the entire deck in their hands. It was great.
My in-laws taught me a game called “Don’t be the jack-ass.” It’s a Danish game, I think (or otherwise Scandinavian), played with something like 40 of the regular cards. There are four or five rounds to the game, and most of the rounds play like hearts, only with different goals–get as many cards as you can, get as many hearts as you can, get as many aces as you can, get the jack of diamonds (I think those are it). The last round is played something like an odd version of multiplayer solitaire. At the end of the game, you add up points, and whoever has the fewest points is the jackass.
They’ve also tried to teach me a game called Palace, but I seem to be genetically incapable of understanding the rules. Speaking as someone who moderates a rules messageboard for Dungeons and Dragons, that’s saying something!
Daniel