Chinese game called "shengji" or 80 points. Basically spade on crack, challenging and skilled based, puts almost all other card game to shame (besides poker).
Deuces. (Aka Deuces High, Big Two, Chinese Poker etc.) Very popular in Chinese communities. It's the best card game I ever played (including Poker which has such a luck element to it), very strategic and tactical. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Two Bid Whist. Pretty fun trick-taking game. A cousin of Bridge. It's a very popular game in Hawaii, where it's known as Trumps. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bid_whist
My family are big card players. When we used to visit my grandmother in Alabama, we'd usually wind up seeing my dad's numerous cousins and have a half dozen games going on at once. Every summer, there would be some new card game that was in vogue, usually a derivative of Bridge. We played a game called Setback quite a bit, and I still play that game to this day with my dad. I also like Cribbage, which my wife and I play. Oh Hell is another great game, especially with a decent size group.
speed and VC are good. i forgot about VC! didn't it have another name? what's funny, is i played it with my relatives in taiwan and they knew the game too! my favorite tho was Egyptian Rat Screw. i was awesome at that!! i play oh **** with my in-laws and that is pretty fun too.
Yes, no one in the states knows this great game. Also bridge is real cool but requires a lot more skill to play.
I've played bridge, but it wasn't one of my favorite card games. ... probably because I was never any good at it. Like many things, it takes practice to become proficient at it. I don't know many people who play cards (much less bridge) to practice with.