World of Card Games

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).

Hey everyone,

USAFvet plays Double Deck Pinochle at World of Card Games. Recently, he shared with me the story of how he came to play that card game. I enjoyed reading it, and I thought others might too! So I asked his permission to publish it on the site. Here it is - USAFvet's Double Deck Pinochle story.

Marya

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.

Today, we have a guest blog from DevilDoc about the nil bid in Spades. I have added some links to definitions of "jargon" terms to help beginners. There's also an intro to nil bidding at the World of Card Games website. - Marya

The nil bid in Spades is the strongest of all the bids one can make. Worth 100 points, it represents 20% of the total game score if your partnership makes it. It also costs your partnership 100 points if you get set plus the penalty for your partner’s bid.

How to bid a nil: The ideal hand should be rich in distribution; i.e., singletons, doubletons, and voids. Ideally, you don’t want any honor [face] cards but if you have any, they should be protected by at least two low cards. The maximum number of spades should not exceed three, with no higher card than the Jack (25% probability of being set). While some will use the Queen of Spades, your probability of being set rises to 50%.

How to defend a nil: The bidding player needs to focus on his loser cards. You want to discard your highest cards as soon as safely possible. If your partner is running a long suit or you have a good distribution, that is the easiest way to get rid of your riskiest cards. The bidder’s partner needs to lead out with the highest card of his longest suit and keep running that suit, from high to low cards if possible. If the bidder’s partner’s hand is weak, he should focus on what the opponents are leading to see if they can cover your cards.

- DevilDoc

The server was updated this morning to apply some changes.

In Gin Rummy, you can now click the "sort" button to sort your cards from left to right or vice versa, by rank.

The sort button toggles between ">" and "<"

Also in Gin Rummy, when you pick a card, it will get added to the right of your hand. This suggestion was made by someone who uses the site on a tablet. It's easier to move a card when you can grab the entire thing and not just an edge. I hope this change won't disturb others too much. I usually dislike making changes to the user interface, but I think the pluses outweigh the minuses, in this case.

[Edit: I see only negative comments below... is there anyone who uses a tablet and likes the new placement that puts your picked card to the right? Feedback from all is welcome!]

There's now a "tick" audio alert to accompany the hourglass that indicates you are timing out.

This was added to help people who may have been away from their computer when the "gong" sound indicated that the game was starting. If someone doesn't have the browser open to World of Card Games on their desktop when the game starts, they may be timing out while they are doing something else. For example, their browser might be minimized, or they have another browser tab open for reading the news, etc. This new little audio reminder will help to solve that problem.

Thanks to the player who suggested adding this!

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.