World of Card Games

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.

This morning, the server was updated with a couple of new features.

Hopefully everyone knows about the "dislike player" icon that can help you avoid players you don't like... (if you don't, go take a look at the blog post which describes it). Now, you have a way to keep track of players that you like as well! There's a yellow star next to each player:

like this player

Click the yellow star to "like" the player. This adds them to your "liked player list." You can edit this list by clicking on your player name at the upper right, and scrolling down to the "Manage Likes" section.

Another new feature is the table listings area. Use the "list of tables" link at the lower left corner to open a panel that displays card games with available seats:

table listings

Notice the emphasis on "available" - only tables where you are allowed and that have open seats are shown. For example, if you are not a registered user, and there's a table that allows "Registered Users Only" with openings, it will not be displayed in the list. Full tables with games in progress are not shown either.

The list displays registered users with a green "R" while Guests are indicated by the letter "G" and robots are a pink "B". A yellow star (★) indicates a player that you have liked. Empty seats are indicated with an open square (☐). Relevant information is displayed about the table as well.

You may click on an empty seat, indicated by an open square, to take that seat. Be aware that if the seat is taken before the panel updates, you won't be able to take that seat! So grab it quick if you are interested.

The server was out briefly for an update this morning. Sorry for the interruption in games!

The update included a couple of changes. There was a bug in Gin Rummy which caused bots to time out, occasionally. Thanks to everyone who reported this! I found a problem which caused that, and fixed it. Please let me know if you see any other problems.

The drag-and-drop functionality in Gin Rummy has also been altered slightly, so you can now see the card that you've picked up to sort. I hope this makes sorting a little easier. Also, sorting now works on tablets - at least on the devices that I have available for testing. Let me know if this does not work for you.

Finally, the Hearts robots have been tuned up a bit, so they will no longer be so cooperative towards someone attempting to shoot.

Gin Rummy - click to play!

 Gin Rummy is now available at World of Card Games! This is a 2-player game that tests your pattern-matching abilities and your memory. The rules are described at the Pagat website.


As usual, there's a tutorial to get you started (click on the "Tutorial" button to the lower right of the Gin Rummy panel on the main page). And you can play with robots if you want to get comfortable before playing with real live humans.

One thing that will help when playing is the ability to sort your cards via "drag-and-drop" functionality.

Give it a try and let me know what you think! Please let me know if you notice any bugs.

[Edit: I just noticed a bug near the end of the Tutorial - a warning message shows up which says "You are not currently playing a game!". I'll fix this eventually, but in the meantime, you can continue the tutorial just by clicking the "x" in the upper right corner of the message - Sep 28 '14 12 PM EDT]

World of Card Games will be down for scheduled maintenance for a short time on September 28 (Sunday), at 2 AM EDT http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?iso=20140928T02&p1=179
 
Sorry for the inconvenience! As usual, a message will be posted on the site in advance, to give everyone some warning. The outage should only last about 10-20 minutes.

The site was down for almost 24 hours today. I apologize to everyone for the long disruption! It's back up now, and I'm investigating what went wrong.

dealer cannot discard the up-card

In Euchre, after the cards are dealt, a card is placed face-up in the middle of the table. Each player in turn gets a chance to "order up" this card, making its suit the trump suit. If it is ordered up, the dealer must take the card, and then discard a card.

At World of Card Games, the dealer is not allowed to discard the ordered up card.

A player at the site recently pointed out to me a scenario in which it would be useful to be able to discard the up-card, even though it's a trump card:

Let’s say I dealt and turned up the 9 of Clubs.  You order it up.  I’m holding Ace King of Hearts and Diamonds and the Ace of Spades.  You will most likely lead the Jack of Clubs so I would like to bury the 9 and save the hand I’m dealt.

I did a little searching, and I found a post in a Yahoo Group which describes a similar scenario. I will reproduce it here for posterity:

I caused a little disagreement while playing in a game of Euchre in a Internet League I play in the other day. I was dealer, holding the Right, Left, Ace, Queen, and 10 of Hearts dealt me, with the 9 of Hearts as the upcard. The three other players passed, where upon I picked the 9 of Hearts up, but then discarded it, keeping the five highter trump cards I was originally dealt. Making a sweep with the five trump cards I held, one of the opponents asked at the end of the hand, "Say, where is the 9 of Hearts you picked up?", to wit I stated that I had discarded it, which brought a chorus of protests form both opposing players, stating that I could not discard the upcard that I had picked up! I have been playing Euchre for 40 years, have seen this done several times over the years, and noone had ever said anything to the contrary about the dealer not being able to discard the upcard if it is order up into their hand, or the dealer pickes it up themselves. I have checked several books on Euchre and searched the Internet sites I know of, but have found nothing said about this situation in any rules anywhere so far. So what is the rule on this - can or cannot the Dealer discard the upcard if it is order up in their hand, or they pick it up themselves, making the upcard suit the trump suit?

(Note that in the above scenario, the problem could have been avoided if the dealer had discarded the 10 of Hearts, which was effectively equivalent to the 9 of Hearts.)

I looked around to see if I could find any definitive rule on this.

The rules at Pagat do not specify that the up card may not be discarded.

The Hoyle site seems to indicate that you should not discard the up card, but maybe I'm reading it too strictly - "As soon as a player accepts the turned-up card as trumps, the dealer discards a card. The discard is placed cross- wise under the undealt cards. The turned-up card belongs to the dealer in place of the discard."

Natty Bumppo's page very clearly states that there's nothing wrong with discarding the up card.

Based on my little bit of research, I'm inclined to think I should change the rule at World of Card Games so that the up card is allowed to be discarded. Please let me know in the comments how you feel about this.