Old Maid

How to play

1. Pick players and mode, then tap Start this round: Choose 2, 3 or 4 players (you plus 1–3 bots) and a mode: Old Maid mode adds one joker to a standard 52-card deck; hidden-card mode adds no joker and sets one card aside face down. Every card is dealt out from the first player round the table — 13 or 14 each in a four-player Old Maid round.
2. Discard the pairs you were dealt: Before anyone draws, each player discards pairs of the same rank. Three of a kind discards two and keeps one; four of a kind discards all four. It happens automatically — in our measured four-player rounds about 13 pairs go out before the first draw.
3. On your turn, tap one of the face-down cards: You always draw from the player before you — the nearest seat that still holds cards. Only their card backs are shown, with a Draw here arrow. Tap any one: if it matches a card in your hand the pair flies to the discard pile, otherwise it slots into your sorted hand.
4. Push a card up to bluff: Tap one of your own cards to push it up; everyone sees which slot is raised but not the card. The best moment is the short beat before a bot draws from you: honest Bruno takes the raised card half the time, sly Rusty never touches it.
5. Get out, and see who keeps the Old Maid: Empty your hand and you're out; places follow the order players get out. When only one player still holds cards, the unmatched Old Maid in their hand marks them last. The results card reveals the places one by one and tracks your not-last streak; Play again passes the first draw to the next seat.

Rules & variants

Old Maid is a matching game, not a ranking game: any two cards of the same rank form a pair, suits don't matter, and the joker (the Old Maid) never pairs. Because the whole deck is dealt, the mate of every other card is always in somebody's hand — each card you draw either pairs at once or tells you its twin is still out there.

The drawing direction never changes: you draw from the player before you, counting back to the first seat that still holds cards. When someone goes out they are skipped and the arrow slides to the next player back. If one draw empties both the player drawn from and the drawer, the player drawn from takes the better place.

Pushing a card up is the only bluff in the game. Each player may raise at most one card; its position is public, its face is not. The three bots have fixed habits — honest Bruno often raises the Old Maid when holding it, sly Rusty raises a plain card instead and never takes the one you raise, casual Mochi draws completely at random. Bots only ever see their own cards and what's on the table.

The hidden-card variant (known in Japan as jiji-nuki) plays the same way with a regular 52-card deck: no joker is added, and one card is set aside face down before the deal. Its same-rank twin can never pair, so that card becomes the loser's card — but nobody knows which one it is until the hidden card is turned over at the end.

Measured over 300 rounds per setting with random draws: a two-player Old Maid round ends after about 8 draws in total, three players about 18, four players about 32 — of which you make only about 8. Every round has a deal code (for example J401739204: Old Maid mode, 4 players, seat 0 first, seed 1739204); Copy game link in the menu sends a friend the exact same deal and the same bot behaviour.

FAQ