World of Card Games

An update was applied to the site this morning. You can now play ranked Hearts with the "Tournament Rules" Option. You will see both types of ranked Hearts games in the list of tables. A table with the "Tournament Rules" Option is annotated with "tr". The "Standard Rules" table is not annotated with anything special.

two possible games of Hearts

You will get a separate Elo rating for Hearts games played with these "Tournament Rules". If you play both types of games, you will see your Elo rating for each Option in your stats area for Hearts. Just click your stats link in the upper right corner, and click the "Hearts" radio button to see your Elo and Skill for the two ranked Hearts Options. Here's a view of my stats:

stats show Tournament Rules with (tr) next to them

I hope you have fun with the new Option!

This morning, the site was updated with a few bug fixes and modifications.

First, the Elo rating has been slightly modified in team games (Spades, Twenty-Nine, Euchre, and Double Deck Pinochle). You won't see much of a change when players with similar ranks are playing against each other. However, if a player with a higher Elo is teamed up with one who has a much lower rating, then the higher rated player will get a little more credit than they did previously. The details are explained on the page which describes Spades rankings. This should help to mitigate the risk of teaming up with a lower-rated partner in ranked team games. Thanks to the player who suggested this to me!

The hand history is now available for Gin Rummy (there's a blog post that describes how the hand history works for Hearts). I've had a couple of bug reports in this game, but have not been able to reproduce the issues. So if you notice a problem, please download the hand history and send it to me. It may help me figure out what is going wrong here

Someone mentioned to me that the Pinochle bots have not been giving an "aces around" bid. If a player has "aces around", it means they have at least one ace in all suits, and indicates a pretty strong hand. If no one has bid yet, a bid of 51 (rather than the minimum bid of 50) is usually taken to signal that the person has "aces around". The bots have been programmed to do this, now.

I'm first to bid, so I'll bid 51, because I have aces around. Now the bots will too!

This update also includes some bug fixes for problems that were reported to me in Twenty-Nine. If you notice any more problems in this game, please report them so that I can make the site better.

After this morning's update to the site, you can now play ranked Twenty-Nine!

ranked twenty-nine

There were a few other updates made, as well. In Double Deck Pinochle, the bots now use the "Jack leadback". Click that link to learn more about how it works. There's also a youtube video about the Jack leadback. The bots have had a few other strategy improvements as well. Thanks to those who sent me feedback over the last several weeks!

In addition, players at ranked tables are now allowed 3 minutes to get back to their table before getting penalized (previously it was 2 minutes).

In Euchre, the bots have had a couple of minor strategy improvements. Also, you are now given less time - 15 seconds - to choose the up card or a suit. This seems long enough even for beginners.

Finally, someone wrote to me with a question about meld bidding. This question made me think my original page on Double Deck Pinochle strategy was insufficient. So I've added a new page on meld bidding. Some players will have their own established meld bidding signals, and those may not agree with mine. In Pinochle, what matters is that the two teammates agree about the signals being made. It also helps to be able to read what your opponents are signalling. If you do not know your partner well, you may want to discuss signals with them after the game. There's a "chat" table button for this purpose. You can also send messages to a player (this only works if you have "liked" them).

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.

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 now play ranked games of Euchre at World of Card Games! Euchre is a team game, so the rules are the same as for Spades. There's only one real difference: there are no "skill points" for Euchre.

Just a few quick remarks about ranked games. You can get to ranked Euchre games by clicking the Menu button (for Euchre). You will also see ranked tables in the "list of tables". You'll see 4 empty seats if the table is completely empty, otherwise you'll see an R for a registered player. If you want to sit opposite someone as their teammate, click the square that is one seat away from them (partners are given alternate seats in the list of tables).

The rules for ranked tables are:

1. They are for registered players only.
2. You must have completed at least 10 regular games before you can play a ranked one.
3. You cannot start a table with bots, but if someone drops out, then bots can be invited.
4. If you drop off the table by accident, you are given 3 minutes to return to the table before you are penalized with a loss. Note that the remaining players do not have to invite a bot, but are allowed to, to take your place.
5. You are given an Elo rating upon completion. The Elo rating is computed the same in Euchre as described for Spades.

Because ranked tables cannot start with bots, they can take a while to get started. The reward is worth the wait, since players take the game more seriously and are less likely to drop out, in my experience. So give it a try!

FYI - In the next week or two, an Elo ratings "decay" will be introduced. If a player has not played in a ranked game for 2 weeks, their Elo rating will be decremented. This will continue each week that the player is not active in ranked games, until the rating reaches 1500 again. All that's needed to keep the decay from occurring is to participate in a ranked game. [Edit June 26 2016: Instead of ratings decaying, the ratings just don't show up on the leaderboards when players do not participate for 2 weeks.]

Euchre ranked games available for registered players

Ranked games have been added to Spades!

You will only be ranked if you choose to play a ranked game, which is shown in purple in the list of tables. Here's an example:

ranked tables are purple in the list of tables

Ranked tables are more strict than regular ones:

1. You must be registered and have finished at least 10 games to get into one.
2. You cannot start a game with bots! They can be invited if someone leaves, however.
3. If you quit, and do not return within 2 3 minutes, you are banned from ranked Spades games for 4 hours 2 hours [ban interval was changed on August 21 2016].
4. Quitting counts as a loss to your Elo rating. If you quit, you take a loss to your two opponents. (The Elo rating of the quitter's teammate is computed independent of this - it depends entirely on whether their team wins or loses, as long as they stick to the end of the game).

The idea is to make ranked tables a little more serious than regular ones. People who enter a ranked game should be committed to sticking to the game, and not quitting at the drop of a hat.

Note: Since Spades is a team game, Elo ratings are computed as if you are participating in two matches, one against each opponent. You are not ranked against your teammate.

BTW you can also get to ranked games from the Spades menu. Click the "Menu" button at the lower right of the Spades game panel, and then click the "Play Ranked Spades" link to be taken to a ranked table:

get to ranked tables using the Menu button

In addition to ranked games, the update this morning applied some more changes. Trick cards can now be piled vertically. And the cards are fanned wider in Hearts, Spades, and Double Deck Pinochle. I hope these additions will make it easier to use the site. Feedback is welcome.

Everyone reading this post probably knows that at World of Card Games, you get forced to play a card if you don't play it quickly enough. Possibly you've been frustrated in experiencing this. But people waiting for you to play your card often share a similar frustration. The timeout is designed to keep the game moving along, so that people are not stuck waiting a long time for someone to play.

If you don't like how long someone is taking, you can always "dislike" them and drop off the table. This hurts your stats, though, and many people like to finish a game once it has started. I have gotten feedback that some people like the timeouts. At other game sites, people sometimes deliberately take a long time to play, in order to get people to drop out of the game. This gives them a win, and improves their stats artificially. I don't want players at World of Card Games to have this problem.

Now with ranked games, I've gotten feedback that some do not want timeouts at all, or that the timeouts are too short. So here's a poll - it specifically refers to ranked games (currently only Hearts has a special ranked table, but rankings will come to other games asap).

I think I've set enough choices to satisfy anyone who has an opinion. If I didn't think of something, please mention it in the comments. I can always run another poll.

Note that in Hearts, the current timeouts are 30 seconds to choose your cards to pass, and 15 seconds to play a card. (I just want to mention that the "show results" link is not showing results properly... click here for current results).

If you're one of those players who hates the "Stick the Dealer" (STD) rule in Euchre at World of Card Games, you now have an option to avoid it.

Stick the Dealer option

Open your "Options" for Euchre. The new option is called "Stick the Dealer". By default, it is set to "Either". It is the least restrictive option. If you keep it this way, you'll be seated most quickly, at any Euchre table, no matter whether the rule is applied or not. If you are first to the table, the STD rule is applied.

If you really like the STD rule, you may want to click "Yes" for this option. This means you will be seated only at tables where the STD rule applies. If you are first to the table, the STD rule is applied.

If you strongly dislike the rule, click "No" for this option, and you'll be seated at tables where the rule is not applicable. If you are first to the table, the STD rule is not applied.

Note that Euchre tables where STD is applied are shown with the notation 'std' in the list of tables. In the screenshot below, the ranked Euchre table has STD applied, while the unranked one (which is for Registered Players Only - 'reg only') does not:

STD applies at all ranked Euchre games

If you are seated at a Euchre table, and you want to know whether the STD rule is enforced, just click the "table info" link in the lower left corner. It will show you all the options that apply to the game:

Euchre table info shows Stick the Dealer option

There were a few other updates this morning.

The Euchre bots have been tinkered with, so they should play a little better now. If you see them make a particularly bad move, you can always send me the hand history so I can look into the problem.

The Pinochle bots had a problem with their meld bids, and this should now be fixed as well.

In Hearts, the rule for who gets points when shooting the moon has been modified. Now, points are deducted from the shooter's score, unless adding points to the other players' scores keeps (or puts) the shooter in first place.

There's also a new "welcome" banner that can be clicked to find out more about ranked tables. You can play ranked Hearts games already. Rankings will come to other games in the next few months.

Yesterday, special ranked tables were added to the Hearts card game. Ranked tables were intended to be exceptional in having strict rules: no robots allowed, and registered players only. Penalties were applied to those who left a game early.

Some players found that the "no robots allowed" policy was making it impossible to finish their games. After someone dropped out (deliberately or accidentally), they'd be stuck waiting for a long time before the game could continue. This was true even though human players are allowed to substitute at ranked tables... so such tables do show up in the "list of tables" (they don't show as ranked once a player leaves because you do not get ranked if you join such a table after it starts). Apparently, tables where "no robots" applies are especially unappealing to Hearts players.

People are not dropping out from ranked games very often, so that's good. Even so, when it happens, it leaves people waiting indefinitely for fear of losing in the rankings, which is no fun. To correct this, I've now changed the rule so that bots may replace a human who left the table. This is only permitted after the game starts. And in case it is not obvious, winning or losing to a bot does not count towards your ranking!

It is still necessary to get 4 humans together to start a ranked game... currently this involves a wait. It appears that most people prefer to start a game with bots. For those who want to play a Hearts game with humans from start to finish, ranked tables are the best way to go. I hope the wait time will lessen as more people discover rankings.

For those who are curious, a description of how "Elo ratings" are computed is given at the site.

You can now play ranked Hearts card games at World of Card Games. There are more details at that link, so take a look there if you are interested.

I've added two different rankings - an "Elo rating" and a "Skill rating" -

Elo rating and Skill rating

If you are eligible to play at a ranked table, you'll see the "ranked" table in the list of tables panel. Click on a seat to be taken to the table.

a ranked table in the list of tables with 3 seats available, note purple color

Bots are unavailable at ranked tables until near the end of the game, so I expect that it may be difficult to get a ranked game going, especially for players outside the US time zone [Edit: as of Oct 3 2015, bots may be invited as soon as someone drops out]. I don't think it makes a lot of sense to rank individuals against bots, though, since they don't have expert levels of skill.

There are several advantages to playing at a ranked table: because quitting a table has a more serious penalty than simply taking a loss, it can be hoped that players will be less likely to quit. In addition to your Elo rating taking a hit, quitting gets you banned from ranked tables for 4 hours. This means that you should find more reliable players at the ranked tables, on average.

I'll be playing at the ranked Hearts tables on and off during the day, and look forward to hearing from people about their experiences with it.

If you experience any problems or bugs after this update, please let me know. There were some major changes!