Goal: Form trios (3 cards) of the same theme to score points. The game ends if either player has fewer than two cards remaining.
Low Cards Rule: If at the start of your turn you have fewer than three cards, you are given up to three cards from the dealer's hand.
Your Turn: Tap a card to show it. If the dealer has cards of the same theme, they surrender them to you. Showing the Trump card on your turn does nothing; it is only used defensively.
Dealer Turn: The dealer asks for a theme. If you have matches, you must surrender them.
Trump Card: The Trump Card acts as a shield! If you hold it when the dealer asks for a match, you can choose to surrender the Trump Card instead of your matching cards. The active player does not lose their turn if cards are retained by use of the Trump card, but they cannot ask for the same theme again during that extended turn. Note: The Trump Card cannot be used to protect the same theme consecutively by the same player! The new holder is free to use it to protect the same theme.
Drawing Cards: Only the dealer draws from the deck! After your turn, the dealer automatically replenishes their hand back up to exactly 8 cards from the top of the deck. As the player, you never draw new cards. Importantly, when the dealer gets a trio, they do not replace the cards from the deck until after the player's next turn. When asked for a match, the dealer only ever considers the cards currently in their active hand, never the deck.
Discarding: All discarded cards and completed trios (from both you and the dealer) must be passed to the player. The player adds these face-down to a new deck forming in their left hand, underneath their active cards.
Exchanging & Deadlocks: To avoid deadlocks, you can tap the Exchange button on your turn. This returns your hand to the bottom of the deck and replaces it with the same number of cards from the top. This counts as your turn. The dealer will also do this if they have no valid cards to play.
Tie-Breaker: If the game ends and trio scores are equal, the player or dealer holding the Trump card wins the tie.
Physical Play: When playing with physical cards, the deck is never placed on the table! The player and dealer always hold all the cards. The dealer holds the starting face-down deck in their fingers with their 8 active cards fanned face-up on top. During gameplay, cards move from the deck held by the dealer to a new face-down deck forming in the player's left hand. The player holds their active cards fanned face-up directly on top of this new deck. When the dealer makes a trio, they pass it to the player's left-hand deck but do not turn up replacement cards from the dealer's deck until after the player's next turn.
The winner always takes the deck, becoming the new dealer.
Challenging the Dealer: When playing against a human dealer, you can ask that the dealer show their hand when they say there is no match. If they do have a match but concealed it, the dealer loses 1 trio from their score.
Copyright © 2026 Brian Hill