World of Card Games

I updated Gin Rummy with a new library which should fix any problems rearranging your cards. I personally have not experienced any problems with rearranging the cards in Gin Rummy, but a few people told me that they had.

If you still have problems, please let me know. It would help if you can tell me what type of device you are using (laptop, iPad, desktop?), which browser (Chrome, Firefox, Safari?), and whether you are using a mouse or touchscreen or something else. Thanks!

Gin Rummy rearranging your cards

In case you want a quick demo, I have a YouTube video which demonstrates how "drag-and-drop" works for rearranging your cards in Gin Rummy.

[Edit: this afternoon, I got reports from one person that they were having problems with Gin Rummy, so I reverted these changes for now... hopefully I can fix this, and reapply the change soon.]

This morning's update fixed a couple of minor bugs.

In addition, I tinkered with the strategy of the Spades bots. There are small changes in their bidding and also in the way that they play.

Please keep in mind that sometimes it's hard to know what to bid, and the bots are not perfect! If you spot a particularly egregious bidding or playing error, where it's obvious that a bot did something bone-headed in the course of a hand of cards, and you want to do something to help correct it, you can! Please try to remember to download the hand history as soon as that hand is finished. Once you download it, you can send it to me, and tell me what you think was wrong. With this information, I can rework the code to improve the bots.

For those who do not know about the hand history, that is just a small text file with a URL (link) in it. The link is to a "replayer" at World of Card Games. When you copy and paste the URL into a web browser, you will get a "replay" of that hand, showing who bid what, and how each card was played. All the cards will be shown face-up straight from the start. This link is an example of a "hand history".  You can click it to see how it works. But don't click it if you are currently playing a game at World of Card Games; it will not work, in that case.

You can only download the hand history if you are a registered user and signed in. Also, it's only available for 30 seconds after the hand finishes. So grab it quickly if you want to save it! To download it, click the little floppy disk icon that appears near your avatar. You can see that in the screenshot, below:

click the floppy disk icon to download hand history

The site was updated this morning to fix a few bugs.

In Gin Rummy, there was a bug which caused your deadwood to be optimized incorrectly when your opponent declared "Gin". This had been reported to me a few times, but I was never able to reproduce the issue. Thanks to Alagon for reporting it and also sending in the hand history! With the hand history, I was able to reproduce the issue, and then I could fix it pretty quickly. (If you want to download a "replayer" for the previous hand, click the little floppy disk image that appears near your avatar after the hand finishes.)

Marie-Michele has reported a few bugs with the Euchre bots, including hand histories. Those hand histories make it possible for me to fix the problems. Most recently, the bot was seen to delay in playing the right bower to take a trick. This has been fixed. The Euchre bots are now a little bit smarter, and will be better teammates (or opponents!). Thank you, Marie-Michele!

When the site was updated last weekend, a few bugs had crept into the build. These bugs have been fixed with this morning's update. Here is the bug list for those who might have noticed:

1. Your Elo rating was not viewable for some games in your stats panel, and also at unranked tables. It also didn't show up for unranked tables in the list of tables. No worries! Your Elo rating wasn't lost, but it could only be viewed at ranked tables.
2. Sometimes a table would vanish from the list of tables even though it still had seats available.

In addition, the Hearts bots have been informed of the new "Tournament Rules" Option, and they will now play a bit better at such tables.

Thank you to everyone who reported these bugs! You help to make the site better by bringing these problems to my attention.

The site is now back online! Sorry for the interruption in your games. This server update was mostly about some bug fixes. The most serious bug was one that caused a table to "freeze" - that problem should be fixed now. Thanks to those who reported the issue!

ranked double deck pinochle games

After this morning's site update, you can now play ranked Double Deck Pinochle games at World of Card Games.

If you enjoy more competitive play, ranked games may be for you. You may want to brush up on your Ace-on-Ace leadback and meld-bidding skills. Please be a good sport! If you are a Pinochle expert, and your partner is playing poorly, don't abuse the chat functionality by being rude. Instead, ask them if they would like some tips. Chatting about strategy while you are playing a game is considered offensive, unless everyone agrees to it. But you can chat freely at a "chat table" after a game, and you can use the site's messaging feature to send short messages to players that you have liked.

By the way, there's a good discussion board, Power Pinochle, for Double Deck Pinochle enthusiasts. You will find many signalling and bidding tips explained there.

The "bots" have been updated in Double Deck Pinochle, so you should notice some improvement in their signalling skills. The bots also got tuned up Euchre.

Here's another major change that you may like: 'notifications' have been added to the site. If you have used Google Calendar, you may have seen these before. A notification is just a tiny popup to let you know about something happening in your browser. At World of Card Games, a tiny popup will appear when your game starts (but only if your browser is in the background)! There's already an audio alert for this event, but a few people have told me that this is not always helpful because their sound is not on.

You can opt out of notifications if you prefer not to get them. Since these types of alerts are built in to your browser, they are not like the annoying pop-ups that some sites have. Your browser can be used to turn them off whenever you like.

Please let me know if you experience any bugs due to the recent update. I plan to update the Pinochle bots with more strategy improvements in the future. If you have any suggestions for improvements you'd like to see, feel free to contact me.

With this morning's server update, your cards are now fanned wider by default in Gin Rummy. They look like this, now:

Gin Rummy cards fanned wider

You can go back to the old fanning by unchecking "Fan Cards Wider" in your Settings:

user Settings are opened by clicking your user name

The "Fan Cards Wider" user setting is checked by default.

This is what happens when you uncheck the "Fan Cards Wider" setting:

Gin Rummy with "Fan Cards Wider" unchecked

The server was also updated with some bug fixes. The ability to move your cards around in Gin Rummy had broken in some touchscreen devices. This is now fixed. Also, if you reloaded the web page while sitting at a Gin Rummy table, your cards got resorted. This no longer happens.

Another general bug fix was made so that the F5 key now works to reload the page in your browser when you are sitting at a table.

Finally, the messaging system was broken during last week's update, but it is now functioning again.

About a week ago, someone reported to me that they tried to download a hand history in Internet Explorer, but a problem occurred - the file was not correctly downloaded.

It turns out that there was a problem with this download in both Internet Explorer and Edge (two common Windows browsers).

As of this morning, the problems have been fixed. So you should now be able to download hand histories for Euchre, Hearts, Spades, and Pinochle.

Click here to download previous hand history

floppy disk icon

Some people like to download hand histories so they can review what happened in the previous hand. They are also useful when reporting bad card-playing strategy by the bots. If you want to report such a problem with the bots, it's helpful to me if you email me a copy of the hand history when you saw the problem - that way, I can most easily figure out what went wrong. Without it, it's like searching for a needle in a haystack.

A few days ago, I got a report that the audio alerts no longer functioned in the latest version of Firefox. That means you would not get the "gong" sound when your game started - an important feature!

As of this morning, audio alerts are now restored in Firefox. Thanks very much to the player who reported this issue!

Hand histories are now available in Hearts, so you can take a look at all the cards played after the hand is over. This feature was already available in Euchre, Spades, and Pinochle. If you wish to report a bug in Hearts, please try to grab the hand history, and send it to me along with the bug report. To do this, click the little floppy disk that appears next to your nameplate after a hand. This will download a small text file that contains a link that can be used to show a replay of the hand, with all cards shown. Use this after your game to see how each card was played.

click to download your hand history

This morning's update also contained a bug fix. A few players were having trouble with a "TypeError" message when trying to get to a table. That problem has been fixed.

Also, the Spades bots got a bit of tuning to fix a bug in the way that they cover a nil bid. Thanks to "no bots plz" for reporting this issue (together with the hand history - that helped so much)!

Note: in my previous blog post, I mentioned that I would soon be adding a "decay" to the Elo ratings. I got a few comments from people who just want the Elo rating hidden. I could do this instead. Does anyone care which way this is done? The intent is to encourage people to play, rather than "sitting" on their ratings.

You can view a few player statistics while you are at a table, after this morning's update. Just click any player's avatar, and a "mini stats panel" will pop up for each player [Edit July 24 2016 - click your name to get the stats panel to appear; click any other player's avatar for the same effect]:

mini stats panel

The first number is their Elo rating. This only appears in games that have rankings (currently Hearts and Spades). If all that you see is a dash, then the player is not yet ranked.

The 2nd number is how many games the player has "completed". This is the same as the number shown as "Finished" in your own stats panel.

The 3rd number tells you how much the person tends to quit games. You should not expect this to be a perfect 0%, since people sometimes get kicked from games accidentally, or have to leave due to unforeseen circumstances. Only the last 16 games are tracked, so it's pretty easy to improve this score with just a few games. Note: it is not counted as quitting if

• you leave a table that has not yet started
• you leave a bots-only table before the game finishes
• you leave a private table before the game finishes

This score is supplied to give you an idea about how reliable the player is. The higher the percent, the more likely it is that the person might skip out on your game.

The update this morning also fixed a long-standing issue that players were able to sign in from a table. It's convenient to be able to do this if you forget to log in from the home page, but some people were using it to manipulate their stats by logging in just before a win at a table. It's no longer allowed, and there's an obvious reminder at the top of the home page letting you know when you're not logged in.

sign in from the home page only!

Other changes: The cards are now fanned wider by default in the Twenty-Nine game, and chat lobbies now hang around for 24 hours at least. Also, bot strategies have been slightly improved in Spades and Double Deck Pinochle.

I got several emails from players that the chats of the player to their right were blocked by the scoreboard in Spades after the update of April 10 that allowed cards to be fanned wider.

This should be fixed now. Thanks to those who reported this, and let me know if you notice any other problems!

There was a bug in the update to the Hearts ratings last week which caused the losing players to get more points deducted from their Elo ratings than they should have. My apologies, I know some of you take the ratings very seriously!

I've applied a fix to the problem this morning. Anyone who would like to get their Elo ratings set back to where they were last Wednesday need only write to me and ask (marya@worldofcardgames.com). To do this, just make sure that you send me the email from the address that you registered with, so I know it's you. I will do this for people up until the end of November.

[Edit on Nov 24 2015: Only a small number of requests to reset Elo ratings have come in. After receiving negative feedback on the way this was being done, I decided to just go ahead and do the work to perform a bulk update of Elo ratings. Anyone who played at a ranked table prior to Nov 17 has had their Elo rating reset to the value from Nov 11, before the bug was introduced. To be clear, this was only done if it led to an increase in their ratings - I did not reset values that were lower.]

I've written a page about how the Elo ratings are computed at World of Card Games, so you can always check for yourself to make sure you are getting the correct results.

I've also applied a fix for the "list of tables", which had a bug that caused the list to stop updating. Third times the charm? I hope so!

This morning, the server was updated to repair a bug in the "list of tables". It's supposed to update every few seconds, but had stopped. This is now fixed.

list of tables updates every few seconds

I've spent a little bit of time updating the bots in Pinochle, based on feedback. They'll still need more work, but overall should be a little bit better in playing their cards now.

The server was down for a short time early this morning to apply a few bug fixes: in particular, the game timer that had been added with the last update was buggy, and is now fixed. Also, in Firefox, some people noticed a player's name hanging around (literally, attached to their cursor) after they clicked into a game from the list of tables. This has been fixed.

This morning, World of Card Games was down for a short time to apply some bug fixes and new features.

Exclude Games in Progress option

Here's a brief summary:

1. There is now an additional option to "Exclude Games in Progress". If you only want to be seated at tables where the game has not yet started, choose this Option (click the Options button to get to your game options). Keep in mind, it may take you a bit longer to get started in this case.
2. The List of Tables now shows how long a game has been in progress. If you really dislike being seated at a long-running table, this is a good feature to use!
3. A few people reported to me that when joining a game in progress, sometimes their cards did not appear in front of them. This bug is now fixed. Please let me know if you see this happen again; it should not! A big thank you goes out especially to "no bots plz" and "davidly" - the two players who gave me enough information to reproduce this bug, so that I could squash it!
4. There is now an audio alert when a game that was paused is restarted.
5. You may use the "replace robots" link after a game has started, now. Previously it could only be used at the start of a game.
6. The "Seventh Card" option has been added to Twenty-Nine. I've written about that in a separate blog post.

The server was out for about 5 minutes this morning, so that some bug fixes could be applied. Sorry for the disruption in games!

I've attempted a fix for the blank screen bug. I was not able to reproduce it reliably, but I could find one case where it rarely happened, and I've fixed that. Please let me know if you see it again!

I've also received reports that the table listings are sometimes incorrect - empty, when they should not be. This appears to have been caused by the "blank screen bug" as well, so it should be corrected now. (Keep in mind that an empty table listing can sometimes occur - it just indicates that there are no tables with seats open at the moment.)

There are a couple of other bug fixes that you can read about in the changelog at the site (under "about" > "show change history").

I'll take this opportunity to let everyone know that there will be a longer outage on December 13, from about 10 pm - 2 am. The company that hosts my server is moving the server to a new data center. Sorry but there's not much I can do about this! I'll post another blog the day beforehand to remind you.

Sometimes, you're in the middle of a card game with friends, and you need a break. You want to refill your drink, let in the cat, baste the turkey, etc. If you were all sitting around a table at home, you could do this. However, it hasn't been possible at World of Card Games... until now.

A "Pause" button was added, for private tables only, with this morning's update. Please chat amongst yourselves if you want to pause the game, to let people know your plan. You must recruit a majority of players for the pause to take effect. For example, if there are 4 (human) players at the table, at least 2 must hit the Pause button. If there are 2 players, then 1 player hitting the pause button is sufficient. When everyone is ready to continue, hit the "Continue" button.

Here's a screenshot of the new buttons, in the upper left corner:


I hope that using this new feature is relatively intuitive. If anyone has trouble with it, please write me with details. I may make changes to this in the future; it's experimental.

By the way, I did not add this to public tables, since I thought that most players, who are not really chummy with each other, would not take kindly to pausing a game.

There are some other, more minor changes.

I have increased the timeouts in 29 (Twenty-Nine) from 15 to 20 seconds for playing a card. It doesn't seem like much, but I hope it makes a difference. Timeouts at private tables are now 40 30 seconds, for all games. [Edit: 30 second timeout at private tables was applied Nov 19 2014 due to feedback.]

I've also deployed a few bug fixes. The site has had a problem with tables freezing in Hearts. I discovered a major bug that could cause that to happen, and it has been fixed. A big thank you goes out to the person who reported this to me most recently!

I've fixed a bug in Gin Rummy that allowed you to knock when you shouldn't be able to do so - another big thank you goes to the player who reported this (including a screenshot)!

Finally, I've added a small improvement to the Euchre bot strategy. This was suggested by a player who noticed that they could use a little fine-tuning. I'm no expert, but I think the bots are getting pretty difficult to beat in Euchre. This is largely thanks to a couple of very helpful Euchre players who have been great about giving me tips. Thanks to you both!

As always, let me know if you see any problems at the site. I'm constantly working to improve it.

It surprises me, but I've had only a few complaints about the bot strategy in Spades. I rarely play with bots, so their problems haven't bugged me too much, and I haven't been highly motivated to fix them. However, when I do play, I've noticed one pretty obvious and irritating behavior: they tend to waste Kings. They'll play the King of clubs, for example, before the Ace of clubs has been played. This is a good way to lose the trick! With today's deploy, this bug is fixed.

In addition, someone mentioned to me that the bots sometimes bid nil when they are holding 5 spades! You will find various sites that recommend you not bid nil with 4 or more spades in your hand (e.g. sky_rockets1's page or the Rules of Spades site). This problem has been fixed as well.

I am far from finished with the bots. More improvements will be coming, when I have the time for it.

let's hope he's smiling because he got the bid right!

A couple of players pointed out to me that there was a bug in the game Twenty-Nine: after the first hand of cards was finished, bids no longer showed up in each player's nameplate. This made it harder to choose a suit because people weren't sure who had bid what... especially if they came into a game in progress.

This is now fixed. I've also added a little bit of information about the previous bid history. If a player has made at least two bids, their previous bid will show in parentheses. See the screenshot below:

twenty-nine: the previous bid shows in parentheses

In this scenario, you are Guest #89. You previously bid 15, and most recently bid 18. Guest #77 previously bid 16 but their current bid is 19. The dealer has only bid once; their initial bid was 17. HAL 9000 has passed twice in a row.

I hope this change helps to make the game more fun! Please let me know if you spot any more problems.