How to play
- The deal. One deck of 52 cards. With two players everyone gets 7 cards; with three to six, 5 cards each. The rest is the stock, face down. Its top card is turned up to start the pile; if that card is an eight, it goes back into the middle of the stock and the next card is turned. Each deal is a hand.
- Who starts. The deal moves one seat to the left every hand. The player on the dealer’s left plays first, and play goes on to the left.
- Your turn. Play one card on the pile that matches the suit or the number of the top card. A 9 of clubs goes on any club or on any 9.
- Eights are wild. An eight can go on any card. When you play one, you name a suit, and the next card must be of that suit (or be another eight).
- Drawing. If you cannot play, or would rather not, draw from the stock one card at a time until you draw a card that fits. You may play that card at once or keep it, and your turn ends. You must stop drawing at the first card that fits.
- An empty stock. When the stock runs out, the pile under its top card is shuffled into a new stock. If there is nothing left to draw and you cannot play, you pass. If the stock has run out 20 times in one hand, the next time it does the hand ends as a blocked hand (our table rule, so a hand cannot go on for ever).
- Going out. The first player to play their last card wins the hand and scores the points of the cards left in every other hand.
- A blocked hand. If nobody can play or draw and everyone passes in turn, the hand ends. The player with the lowest count in hand scores the difference between each other hand and their own. Players who share the lowest count each score it.
- The end. After a hand in which someone reaches 100 points, the game is over. The highest total wins; equal totals share the place.
What the cards left in a hand count
| Card | Points |
|---|---|
| Each eight | 50 |
| King, queen, jack, 10 | 10 |
| Ace | 1 |
| 2 to 9 (not the eight) | the number on the card |
At the online table
- Tap a card to lift it, then tap it again (or “Play”) to play it. Only the cards you may play look bright on your turn.
- Lift an eight and four carved suit tokens open above the table: tap the suit you name. A token of that suit then lies on the pile.
- Tap the stock to draw. A card that fits is lifted for you: “Play it” or “Keep it”.
- On a keyboard: Tab to your hand, the arrow keys move along it, Enter lifts and plays a card, D draws, K keeps the card you drew, P passes when you can neither play nor draw, 1 to 4 name clubs, diamonds, hearts or spades, M turns the sound off.
- Each turn has a 20-second timer. If time runs out, the table plays your lowest card for you, or draws.
- An empty seat is taken by a bot, always marked as a bot.
- Point at the stock, the pile or a card of your hand, or hold a finger on it, to read what it is and why a card cannot be played now.
Why it is fair
A secret seed shuffles every deal and every new stock of the game. You see its fingerprint when the game starts and the seed itself when it ends, so you can deal every hand again and check it. Verify a game.