Guandan

How to play

1. Start a Guandan match and pick the Aces rule: The start screen shows the goal and a five-line rule card, then two chips for the Aces rule: “Must win · tournament” never drops you back when you fail your Aces; “Three misses → back to 2” is the common house rule. Tap Start a new match to deal 27 cards to each of the four seats. Hand 1 plays level 2 and you lead. Tap anywhere during the deal to skip it.
2. Select cards and play in Guandan: Your 27 cards are stacked into one column per rank. Tap a column to take one card from it, tap again to take another, and once it is full the next tap clears it; the “n in” badge shows how many you took. The Play button spells out what the selection is — “Pair of 9s”, “Straight 5–9”. When the wild makes more than one reading possible, chips appear above the table so you can choose. While following, columns that can help beat the table stay bright and the rest dim, and Hint cycles through legal plays from cheapest to most expensive.
3. How a Guandan hand ends and how levels go up: The first player out is 1st, then 2nd, 3rd and last. The hand ends when the first-out player's partner also goes out, or three players are out. The first-out team moves up by the partner's place: 2nd +3, 3rd +2, last +1, and the next hand plays that team's level. A “+N” rises on the level strip right away, then a summary card lists the finish order and the level math. Next hand keeps going; Play later saves the match.
4. Tribute, return tribute and passing Aces in Guandan: From hand 2 on, last hand's last-out player pays their best card (never the wild) to the first-out player, who gives back a card from 2 to 10; after a 1-2 finish both losers pay. If the paying side holds both big jokers the tribute is resisted and the first-out player leads. When you receive tribute, the suggested card to give back is already selected. Once a team reaches Aces, going out first on its own Aces with the partner not last wins the whole match.

Rules & variants

Guandan basics: two standard decks with jokers make 108 cards. Four players sit in two partnerships — you and the player opposite against the players to your left and right — and each gets 27 cards. The leader may play any valid combination; each following player must play a higher combination of the same type or pass. After three passes in a row the trick closes and the last player to play leads the next one. Teams climb levels from 2 to Aces, and the first team to win on its own Aces takes the match.

Level cards and card order in Guandan: every hand is played at a level — hand 1 at 2, later hands at the level of the team that went out first last time. The level rank is the highest natural rank, above A K Q J 10 down to 2; the small joker beats the level card and the big joker beats everything. Straights, tubes, plates and straight flushes use the cards' natural positions, A may count low or high, and runs never wrap around.

The Guandan wild card: the two hearts of the current level rank are wild. A wild stands in for any non-joker card of any rank and suit, but never for a joker; played alone it is just a level card. Selections with a wild can often be read more than one way — for example a straight that can also become a straight flush — and this site shows each reading as a chip, strongest first-choice, with an “as X” tag on the wild once it hits the table.

Guandan combinations: single, pair (only identical jokers pair — big plus small is not a pair), three of a kind, full house (three plus a pair), straight (exactly five cards), tube (three consecutive pairs), plate (two consecutive triples), bomb (four to ten cards of one rank), straight flush (five in a row of one suit) and the four-joker bomb. A non-bomb can only be beaten by a higher combination of the same type and size.

Guandan bomb ranking: four-card bomb < five-card bomb < straight flush < six-card bomb < seven < eight < nine < ten-card bomb < four-joker bomb. Any bomb beats any non-bomb; between bombs the tier above decides first and rank breaks ties. The four-joker bomb can never be beaten.

Tribute and return tribute: from the second hand, after the deal and before the lead, the last-out player of the previous hand gives their highest single card (never a wild) to the first-out player. After a 1-2 finish both losers pay, the higher card going to the first-out player and the lower to the second. Each receiver gives back one card from 2 to 10. The payer (or the higher payer after a 1-2 finish) leads. If the paying side holds both big jokers, the tribute is resisted: no cards change hands and the first-out player leads.

Passing the lead: if a trick closes and the player who would lead has already gone out, their partner leads instead. Players who are out pass automatically. A hand ends when the first-out player's partner also goes out, or when three players are out; if the partner finished second, both opponents are ranked together as “down” — a 1-2 finish.

Levels in Guandan: the team with the first-out player wins the hand and moves up by the partner's finish — 2nd (a 1-2 finish) +3, 3rd +2, last +1 — never beyond Aces. The winning team's level becomes the level of the next hand. Both teams start at 2.

Winning on Aces: once a team is at Aces, it wins the match by going out first in a hand played on its own Aces while the partner is not last. Playing your own Aces without passing them counts as a miss. This site has one switch: tournament rules never drop you back, while the common house rule sends a team back to 2 after its third miss.

Guandan strategy: watch the four tallies on the level strip — big jokers, small jokers, wilds and level cards still out are the biggest cards in the game. Keep the wild for straights, straight flushes and bombs rather than playing it alone. When your partner is nearly out, lead low singles to help them go. Straight flushes and six-plus bombs win hands; sorting by combo shows at a glance how many you hold. Don't beat your partner's plays unless you must — the computer partner here follows the same rule.

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