GAMES TABLE

How it works

1. One of you hosts

   Press Host on a game. A four-character code appears on your screen.

2. Read the code out

   Everyone else presses Join and types it in on their own phone — same room or not.

3. The host deals

   Empty seats are played by bots, so the game deals whether you are eight or on your own, and a phone that drops keeps its seat.

Pick a game

You bid on how many points your side will capture, name trump, then call the exact cards whose holders become your secret partners — and nobody knows who is on your team until those cards hit the table.

Players

4–8

Points in play

150 or 300

Match to

300 or 500, or whatever the host sets

You win by

Making your bid

Only thirteen cards score

Everything else is a tool for winning the tricks that hold them.

Six to eight players use two decks, so everything above doubles: 300 points in play, and two copies of every card including the Black Queen. Ranking is ordinary — A K Q J 10 9 … 2 — so the Black Queen is beaten by the king and ace of spades. That is the whole tension of the game: the most valuable card in the deck is not the strongest.

A hand, start to finish

1. Bid

   Starting left of the dealer, each player either raises or passes — and a pass is final. The table sets the opening floor before the deal: half the points in play by default, so 75 with one deck and 150 with two, climbing in fives. The last player standing is the declarer, and their bid is the contract they have to capture.

2. Name trump

   The declarer names a suit, face up, for everyone to see. Trump beats any other suit for the rest of the hand.

3. Call partners

   The declarer names exact cards — the ace of spades, the ten of hearts. Whoever holds one is on the declarer's team, and does not say so. Four and five players call one card; six and seven call two; eight call three.

4. Play out the hand

   The declarer leads. Follow the led suit if you can; if you cannot, play anything, including trump. Highest trump takes the trick, or the highest card of the led suit if no one trumped, and the winner leads next. Hands run from 10 cards to 16 depending on how many are at the table.

5. Watch the partners surface

   The moment a called card is played, that player is revealed as a partner — often mid-trick, sometimes far too late for the other side. Until then everyone is guessing, including the declarer.

6. End it early, if it is already decided

   Once every called partner has shown and the bid is either made or out of reach, the declarer may conclude the hand rather than play out tricks that change nothing. Only the declarer, only between tricks, and only when both of those are true. On a made hand it costs nothing: the hand is worth the bid rather than the points. On a dead one it is a real concession — the cards left in hand are never played, so every point still in them counts to the opposition instead.

7. Score

   Add up the points the declarer's team captured. Make the bid and everyone on that team scores it; miss it and they all lose it, while every opponent scores the points the team failed to capture — everything still on the table, not the bid. Scores are per player, because teams re-form every hand.

   Hands keep dealing until somebody reaches the winning score. That is 300 at a one-deck table and 500 at two unless the host moves it in the lobby — a shorter match for one sitting, a longer one for an evening.

When the same player is called twice

With two decks it happens: the declarer calls two cards and one player holds both. That player becomes a double partner — their score for the hand is doubled either way, win or lose. The team plays a seat short, but that seat carries twice the weight. (Two other rulings ship as table options: void the claim and call a replacement, or simply play short.)

Calling the same card twice

Normally every partner card is a different card. Turn on repeat a call in the lobby and the declarer may name a card once for each copy of it still in play — with two decks, both aces of spades. Each call waits on its own copy: whoever plays the first joins the team, whoever plays the second joins too.

It is not a way to build a bigger team — two calls on one card find two partners exactly as often as two calls on different cards. What changes is what the team ends up holding. Both aces of spades put thirty points on your side of the table where an ace and a king put fifteen, and they concentrate your team in one suit instead of two. It is a points-and-read play: it pays when the two copies are split between two players and costs when one player holds both, which is then settled by the rule above.

Four and five players share a single deck, which holds one of every card, so this option changes nothing below six.

Playing it with people

Four to eight players. The host sets the seat count and deals when everyone is in; if your phone drops mid-hand your seat is held for you rather than given away.

On one Wi‑Fi with no internet, the host's screen shows an address instead of a code; it goes in the same box.

Play Black Queen

Take relics, spend them on cards, and every card you buy makes every later card cheaper. The game is short because it accelerates: the first card costs three or four relics, and by the end you are buying five-point cards for nothing.

Players

2–4

First to

20 points (the host may change it)

Hand limit

10 tokens, gold included

You win by

Most points

One action per turn — pick any one

Two ways to play

The host chooses one when they open the table. The cards, the champions and the maths are identical — the only difference is whether relics can cross the table.

One relic each way, never gold — gold is wild, and trading for one would beat taking relics every time. And because a refusal still costs the asker their turn, nobody can spend the game making offers.

Cards are discounts, not just points

A card's colour is a permanent discount on every purchase afterwards. Owning two blue cards means every future cost of blue is two lower, for the rest of the game, on every card you ever buy.

Champions come to you

Champions sit above the market, worth 3 points each. Collect the cards one asks for — three each of three colours, or four each of two — and it visits at the end of your turn, free. Champions count the cards you own, never the relics in your hand.

Ending the game

The target is 20 points unless the host sets it otherwise — anywhere from 10 for a short game to 40 for a long one. When someone reaches it the round is played out, so everyone has taken the same number of turns. Most points wins; if two players tie, the one who bought fewer cards takes it — efficiency is the tiebreak.

One more rule that catches everybody: you may never end a turn holding more than ten tokens, gold included. Take a third relic you did not need and you will be handing one back.

Playing it with people

Two to four players. The host sets the player count, the market (Sealed or Open) and the target. Your relics and your points are public, as they would be on a real table — the only secret is a card you reserved face down off a deck.

Play Trade Table

Add to Home Screen

It is a web page, so there is nothing to download — but it can sit on your phone like an app, open full screen, and the rules are here even offline.

Android: open gamestable.app in Chrome and tap Install on this phone on the home screen, or Install app in the browser menu.

iPhone: in Safari, tap Share then Add to Home Screen — iOS has no install button of its own.