29

Version 1.0.0 · The Arcade · Catalogue 36

Bid for a promise, choose a hidden advantage, then back your partner through eight tricks.

Your objective

You sit opposite Partner. Together you play against Mira and Dev. The highest bidder promises that their partnership can collect at least the bid in card points. If your side makes its contract, you win. If the other side bids, you win by keeping it below its contract.

The score is based on the cards captured, not the number of tricks. Eight tricks contain 28 card points altogether. There is no bonus for the last trick, even though the game is called 29.

Cards, ranks and points

The pack contains 32 cards: eight ranks in each of spades, hearts, clubs and diamonds. From strongest to weakest, the order is J, 9, A, 10, K, Q, 8, 7. A jack beats an ace; a nine beats a king.

• Jack: 3 points.
• Nine: 2 points.
• Ace and ten: 1 point each.
• King, queen, eight and seven: 0 points.

The small point badges on scoring cards help you read the hand. Suits use both a symbol and a colour. Your hand is grouped by suit and then by this game’s rank order. Other seats show a face-down card count.

Start with a four-card auction

The opening dealer is Dev. The seat to the dealer’s left acts first, and turns continue around the four seats. Everyone has only four cards during bidding. The remaining four arrive after trump is chosen.

On your turn, enter a whole-number bid or adjust it with the minus/plus buttons. The minimum is 16, and a new bid must exceed the current one. The maximum is 28. Press Bid to promise that many points, or Pass.

Three successive passes close the auction. A new bid resets the pass count. Passing once does not eliminate you: if someone bids and your turn comes around, you may bid again. If the first three seats all pass before anyone bids, the dealer is forced to take 16. A bid of 28 closes the auction immediately.

This table uses the documented minimum-16 variant. Some tables, including Pagat’s main profile, start at 15. The interface always applies 16 here.

Choose and reveal trump

If you win the auction, choose one of the four suit buttons using the four cards you already hold. Everyone then receives four more cards, bringing each hand to eight. The secret marker is separate; choosing trump does not remove one of your cards.

If you are the bidder, the status shows your secret suit. If a bot bid, its choice stays hidden from you until reveal. A bot partner does not disclose its secret suit to you early.

The first player unable to follow the led suit automatically reveals trump. This includes the bidder. You do not need to find a separate Reveal button. Before this happens, cards of the secret suit behave like ordinary cards.

Once revealed, trump counts for the whole current trick, including cards that were already on the table, and for all later tricks. If at least one trump is present, the highest trump wins. Otherwise, the highest card of the led suit wins. A player who is void may still discard any card: revealing trump does not force that player to play one.

Play eight tricks

The dealer’s left leads the first trick. The leader may choose any card. Each following player must use the same suit if they have it. If they have none, any card is legal. Bright cards in your hand are playable; unavailable cards are disabled.

Tap or click one legal card to lift and select it. Its label and point value appear beside Play. Choose a different card if you wish, then press Play to commit. A committed card cannot be taken back.

Four cards make a trick. The winning card is marked, its partnership receives all the trick’s card points, and the winner leads next. Press Next trick to continue after inspecting the four cards. After the eighth trick, the result appears automatically.

The strip above the table shows your team’s points, the contract and the trump status. The recent-events strip records bids, the private trump choice and its reveal. The trick caption says which of the eight tricks is being played.

Mouse, touch and keyboard

• Bid/Pass: use their buttons, or press B/P when the bid input does not hold focus.
• Bid value: type a legal number or use the number field’s arrow keys; minus/plus also adjust it.
• Trump: tap a suit button, or reach it with Tab and activate it with Space/Enter.
• Hand: tap an exposed card corner; the selected card lifts. Keys 1–8 select the matching numbered legal card.
• Play: press its button. Selecting a card focuses Play, so Enter or Space confirms it.
• Other controls: Tab reaches New deal, Next trick, Table rules and the guide/install controls. Space or Enter activates ordinary buttons.

On a phone, the hand overlaps to retain large card faces. Each card keeps a tappable corner strip. Scroll the page when you need to reach the result, rules or full guide. Inside another site’s frame, tap within the game before using keyboard shortcuts.

Worked examples

Suppose you bid 18, Mira passes, Partner passes and Dev passes. Those three consecutive passes finish the auction, and you choose trump. If Mira had bid 19 instead, the pass count would restart and you could bid again when your next turn arrived.

For a rank example, hearts are led and the four cards are A♥, 9♥, J♥ and K♥. With no active trump involved, J♥ wins. The partnership taking that trick collects 1 + 2 + 3 + 0 = 6 points.

For reveal timing, suppose clubs are the hidden trump and someone leads 7♣. A later player cannot follow clubs, so trump is revealed. The club cards already played now count as trumps too; the highest club in the completed trick wins. The void player may discard any of their cards; there is no obligation to win the trick.

For a contract example, your team bids 18 and finishes with 20 points against the opponents’ 8. The contract is made and your partnership wins. If Mira + Dev bid 18 and take only 17, their contract fails and your partnership wins with the remaining 11. Merely having more points is not the rule for the defending side; preventing the contract is.

A little strategy

Judge the first four cards before bidding. Jacks and nines carry both strength and points; several cards in one suit may make that suit a useful trump choice. Four unknown cards are still to come, so the opening hand cannot guarantee a contract.

Watch who is currently winning a trick. When your partner is safely winning, adding a scoring card can feed points to your own side. If an opponent can still overtake, a valuable card may be at risk. Keep the unusual J–9–A–10 order in mind.

Track the revealed trump and suits that players cannot follow. You may discard when void, so spending a trump is a choice. The bots are simple legal practice partners; they do not read your hidden hand or predict the undealt pack.

Results and a new deal

The result names the winning partnership and shows the bidding team’s needed points, took points, Contract made/not made, and both team totals. The totals always add to 28 after a full deal. There is no cumulative win record or pip score.

Press Deal again on the result, or New deal at any time, to clear the current hand and scores, rotate the dealer and deal a new shuffled pack. Starting again during play abandons the unfinished deal. There is no undo or difficulty selector.

Session-only progress

The hand exists only in the open page. Reloading or closing and reopening starts the opening deal again, with Dev as dealer. Reconnecting an embedded game also starts a fresh session. Keep the game tab open when reading this guide in its separate tab. Installation caches the application, not your cards, bid or score.

Install and play offline

Open the standalone game online over HTTPS, or localhost for local use. Press Install game if the browser offers installation; otherwise follow the displayed browser-menu instructions for installing or adding the page to the home screen. The wording and availability depend on your browser.

After that first online visit has cached the files, the standalone game and this guide can reopen offline. Each browser/device needs its own first online visit. Clearing browser storage removes the cache and requires another online visit. An installed copy has the same rules and session-only progress.

When embedded in another page, the game does not register an offline worker. The host may handle Install; otherwise instructions explain how to open the standalone game. Separate embedded instances play independent deals.

If something seems stuck

• I cannot bid: wait for your turn. A legal bid is an integer above the current bid, from 16 through 28.
• Only four cards are visible: the auction is still in progress, or trump has not been chosen. The second half of the hand comes afterward.
• A card is disabled: it is another seat’s turn, or you must follow suit. During the auction, the four cards are for inspection only.
• Play is unavailable: select one legal card first. Next trick is the control after a completed trick.
• Trump appeared without a button press: first-void reveal is automatic and compulsory at this table.
• My team has fewer points but won: the opponents bid and failed to reach their target.
• Offline/Install is unavailable: first visit the standalone page online over HTTPS or localhost. Browser support, storage settings and private browsing can affect installation and caching.
• My deal disappeared: reload, reopening or New deal starts afresh by design.

About this edition

This is one complete local partnership deal with three practice bots. It has no marriages, doubles/redoubles, seventh-card trump, last-trick bonus, cumulative pips, accounts or network play. The accepted design used Pagat’s Twenty-Nine rules as a reference and states its chosen minimum-16 profile openly. The engine, instructions, SVG cards and jade table art are original. All runtime assets are local and use system fonts.