How to make War (the card game) fun for parents

Recently my kids were bored, so I introduced them to the game of War.  War is one of the simplest card games in existence, and for young children, it is extremely fun.  Unfortunately, for parents, War also gets boring in a hurry.  However, from the standpoint of teaching math, War can actually be a really good game.  On top of that, I'm proud to say that my daughter invented a variation that makes me want to play War more often!

First, let me explain the basic rules for the classic game of War in case you don't already know the rules:

• Get a deck of cards.  If cards are missing, that's not an issue.
• Deal the cards face down evenly to each player.  War works best with 2 or 3 players.
• Each player should collect the cards in a neat pile without looking at them.
• Now everybody flips the top card and places it in the middle.  Whoever has the top card takes all the cards.  These cards should be stored face up so they are not confused with the current deck.  Aces are high, followed by kings, queens, jacks, 10s, and so on.  You can also play with jokers being higher than aces.
• In the case of a tie, you have a war.  For each person in the war, place the next 3 cards face down in the middle.  Now flip your top card.  Highest card wins ALL the cards. By the way, this is the only way that you can win the highest card from an opponent.  After winning the war, you can view all the cards.
• Once your deck is exhausted, you shuffle the cards that you've won, and continue.
• Keep playing until one person has won all of the cards

The traditional game of War is exhausting due to the fact that you need to win all of the cards.  The game can literally take more than 1 hour.  The solution to this problem is very simple.  Instead of reshuffling the cards that you won, you simply stop and everybody counts up how many cards they have.  Winner is the person with the most cards.  Here are benefits of this variation:

• Each game is quick, meaning you can play a whole bunch of games.  The ramification is that if you play enough times, everybody will win at least one time. As you should know, for young children, winning is important, so the chance for everybody to win at least once is quite beneficial.
• Consider the fact that my son Darian is only 3 years old.  As we play war, he is constantly getting practice comparing numbers to determine which number is the biggest.  He even has to work with abstract numeric concepts like jacks, queens, kings, and aces.  
• Also, at the end of each game, you have to count the cards that you won.  This is an awesome counting exercise for kids 3-5 years old.  Since Darian is only 3, he has not developed superb coordination yet, so the exercise of counting out his cards one at a time is great math practice.

Now for the variation that makes me very proud.  My daughter Skyla, who is six years old and in first grade, invented a variation where you flip two cards at a time and add up the result.  So if you flip a king and a 5, you have 13 + 5 = 18.  Aces count as 14 and jokers count as 15.  Here's what I like about it:

• Young kids need to practice their math facts.  This makes War a totally awesome way to practice math facts.  I recommend this version for students in grades 1 through 5.  Yes, it goes beyond 9+9, making it fairly advanced, but if your kid can handle it, this is absolutely the way to go.  Skyla has already mastered her addition math facts (using MathScore of course), so the additional challenge of adding up two cards is perfect practice for her.
• Aces and jokers no longer seem impenetrable.  If you draw a joker and a 2, there's a good chance you are going to lose.
• Playing the game this way (with jokers), all I'm really thinking is "Wow, my kid is having a great time adding numbers up to 15+15".

If you end up playing War with these variations, please let me know!