Updated Features
Tuesday, June 21, 2022
Customize Oh Hell
The Oh Hell “More Games/Rules…” form has been reorganized to offer a “Custom Deal Pattern” choice in its “Deal pattern” option. Choose that and you’ll see a new section where you can specify the first hand’s number of cards, the last hand’s number of cards, and the switch point.
To try these new options, use the “More Games/Rules” button when creating your next game.
Saturday, June 18, 2022
Score More in Oh Hell
Based on customer requests, we’ve added new scoring options to Oh Hell. With the “Trick points” option you can control whether 1, 2, or 3 points per trick are added for a successful bid. The “Failed bids score” option lets you give no points when players miss their bid.
To try these new options, use the “More Games/Rules” button when creating your next game.
Monday, May 23, 2022
Show Off Your Score, Too
All players can now share their scorecard with others by using the “Share” button on the final scorecard of any style game – Play, Join, Compete, or Practice. Practice mode players can challenge others to play the same game.
The “Share” button replaces the “Challenge” button previously available only in Practice games.
Saturday, May 7, 2022
Bids are Blind
Spades players may now choose to offer blind bids other than Nil. Use the “More Games/Rules” button to view the Spades Rules form and the new “Blind bids” and “Min blind bid” options.
Tuesday, April 26, 2022
Watch Face Up
“Join” games can now be set to allow watchers to watch the game with cards face-up. Create your next game using the “More Games/Rules” button and set “Allow watching” to “Face Up.”
Play Face Up
“Join” and “Practice” games can now be played with all hands face-up. Set the game rule option “Show all hands” to “Yes.” Suggestions and the bots’ play does not change when playing face-up.
Friday, April 22, 2022
Don’t Give Up
Players who don’t want the new Pinochle “throw in” option can turn it off. When creating your next game, use the “More Games/Rules” button and set “Ask throw in” to No.
Tuesday, April 19, 2022
Give Up in Pinochle
We’ve added the ability for the Pinochle declarer to “throw in” if they don’t think they can make their bid. If you want to play out the hand, just lead a card.
Saturday, April 16, 2022
Euchre Misdeal
We’ve added an “allow misdeal” rule option to Euchre. This option allows you to let players with “Ace, No Face” and/or “No Ace, No Face” to call a misdeal. Use the “More Games/Rules” button when creating your next game and try this option.
Show Off Your Score
The Challenge feature (see Bragging Rights, below) has been enhanced to display a scorecard that you can copy and share. Choose “Challenge” on the final scorecard of a Practice game.
Tuesday, April 12, 2022
Colorful Trump
By customer request, we’ve added more colors you can use to highlight the trump cards. See the new “Trump Highlight” option in the Theme section of Settings (in the main menu).
Play and Stay
To improve the overall experience in “Play” mode games, we encourage all players to stay and finish the games they join. If you leave a “Play” game too quickly without finishing, you must wait before joining a new “Play” game.
Saturday, April 9, 2022
Faster Melds
We’ve added a Pinochle game rule option to control the speed of the meld display. Players creating Join, Practice, and Compete games can choose from five settings ranging from Very Fast to Very Slow. To try it, create your next Pinochle game using the "More Games/Rules" button and set the "Meld display speed" rule option.
Wednesday, April 6, 2022
Lead Trump in Oh Hell
We’ve added the popular “Lead trump” option to Oh Hell. This option allows you to specify that trump cannot be led on the first trick or until trump has been broken. Use the “More Games/Rules” button and try this on your next game.
Saturday, April 2, 2022
Dealer Display Before Start
We now show who will be the dealer of the first hand when you are waiting for the game to start. This allows you to position yourself relative to the dealer.
Bragging Rights
We’ve added a feature to Practice games so you can challenge your friends to replay the same game. On the final scorecard, choose “Challenge” and then share a link with friends. They will get to play the same cards from the same seat as you. See who plays it best.
Tuesday, March 29, 2022
No First Blood
By customer request, we’ve added a “Lead trump” option to Euchre. This option allows you to specify that trump cannot be led on the first trick or until trump has been broken. The default behavior is that trump can be led anytime.
Failed Nil Nada
Also by request, we’ve added a “No Bags/No Help” option to Spades’ “Failed Nil” option. When chosen, the overtricks from a failed Nil are neither added to the failed Nil bidder’s score nor added to the team score.
Saturday, March 19, 2022
Work Harder for One
For those who think taking 3 tricks in Euchre is too easy, you can now make it so you have to take 4 tricks to make your bid for 1 point. Use the “More Games/Rules” button and set “Take 4 for 1 pt” to Yes.
Alone for Less
Euchre players can now choose to score just 2 for an “alone” bid when taking all 5 tricks. Set “Alone worth 2 pts” to Yes.
Spades Like Hearts
We’ve added a new Spades option “Low ♣ first trick” that requires players to play their lowest club on the first trick. The player holding the low club leads first.
Play It Safe
The new Spades option “No ♠ first trick” makes it so a spade cannot be led or dumped on the first trick.
Friday, March 11, 2022
Spades Pass More
Based on customer requests, we’ve increased the number of cards that can be passed on Nil/Blind Nil to four.
Double-deck Kitty
Double-deck Pinochle players can now choose to play with a kitty. Create your next game using the “More Games/Rules” button and set “Kitty” to Yes.
Tuesday, March 8, 2022
Love Your Rules
We’ve added the ability to mark rules as favorites. Favorite rules appear at the top of the list in each game section. To make a rule a favorite, simply click or tap the open-heart icon in the upper right corner of the rule tile. Favorites are indicated by a solid heart, as shown below.
Example of a favorite rule
You can also mark favorites on the game rules form next to the rules summary at the top. Use the “More Games/Rules” button to access.
Friday, February 25, 2022
Leaderboards Account for Ties
Based on customer feedback, starting tomorrow the leaderboard categories % Games Won and # Games Won will count ties as half a win. We round up halves so that 3 ties count as 2 wins.
Tuesday, February 22, 2022
Trickster Bots Now Open Source
Based on players’ interest in enhancing our bots, we have made our Trickster bots open source. Programmers with experience in C# are invited to visit our GitHub repository TricksterCards/TricksterBots.
Saturday, January 15, 2022
Bidder Goes Out in 500
We’ve added a “Bidder goes out” game rule option to 500. When set to yes, the bidder team wins if both teams go over 500.
To try this option in your next 500 game, use the “More Games/Rules” button and set “Bidder goes out” to Yes. Ensure the other options are as you want them and create the game using the “Create” button at the bottom of the form.
Wednesday, January 12, 2022
Upload Decks for Bridge
Based on customer requests, we’ve added the ability to upload decks for use in Bridge Join and Practice games. See the new help topic Uploading Decks to learn about this new feature.
Saturday, October 16, 2021
500 Review Deal
We’ve added a “review last deal” option to 500. When enabled, all dealt hands are displayed face-up along with the kitty (widow) and bids at the end of each deal. This is a game rules option that can be set in the 500 Rules form (use the “More Games/Rules” button when creating a game). This feature is available only in Join and Practice games. Also available for Bridge and Pinochle.
No Kitty for Misère
500 has a new game rule option for whether a bidder with Misère (Nullo) gets the kitty (widow). On the 500 Rules form, set the option labeled “Misère gets kitty” (or “Nullo gets widow”) to “Never” to not give the kitty to a Misère or Open Misère bidder. Set it to “Unless Open” to only not give it to an Open Misère bidder. “Always” always gives the kitty to the winning bidder.
Saturday, October 2, 2021
Mixing It Up
Based on feedback, we’re keeping players with a First or Top 10 leaderboard badge on a “% games won” leaderboard from playing in the same partnership “Play” or “Compete” game together.
See Something? Say Something
We want to remind players of the Report Player feature. If you suspect a player is cheating or witness a player chatting inappropriately, you can report them by using the “Report” item in their player menu. Simply click on their player name and choose Report.
Wednesday, September 29, 2021
Club Event Changes
We’ve made several improvements to Clubs, the most important being a change to club event games. Now, instead of having to pre-confirm participation, club members who want to play simply show up at the time of the event and enter the event lobby. When the event is started, games are created for only the members who show up.
Invitation-only events can still be created. In that case, the lobby is available only to invited club members and the event may be started when all confirmed players are present.
We’ve also added notifications for (1) being invited to join a club, (2) an event you can play being created, (3) being invited to play an event, and (4) the lobby being opened for an event. Players control what notifications to receive using the Notifications setting in Settings.
To read more, see the updated About Clubs help topic.
Saturday, July 24, 2021
Leaderboards by Game Mode
Inspired by customer complaints, we’ve split the leaderboards by game mode: Play, Join, Compete. You can now see where you and your friends stand in each mode. Badges are awarded for First, Top 10, and Top 10% in each mode, thereby increasing your chances for a badge.
Saturday, July 10, 2021
New First Dealer
Based on feedback, we’ve refined the “Keep Dealer Moving” update to avoid repeating the same first dealer across games. If “Play Again” would cause the first dealer to be repeated, the deal moves one additional seat clockwise instead.
Pitch Dealer May Pass
By request, we’ve added a “Dealer may pass” option to Pitch. This allows the dealer to pass when bidding even if no other player has bid. If the dealer passes the deal moves clockwise one seat and cards are redealt.
Friday, July 9, 2021
Single Bid Double Deck Pinochle
By customer request, we’ve added the Single bid option to double deck Pinochle. Create your next game using the “More/Games Rules” button and set the “Bid style” option to “Single.”
New Ad Look
Google is updating the look and behavior of the ads we show. Starting today, some players may see this new look. The biggest change is that you may have to manually dismiss some ads – either by clicking the X in the upper right corner of the ad or clicking a button within the ad such as “Close.”
Saturday, May 29, 2021
Keep Dealer Moving
We’ve made a change to “Play Again” so that the dealer of the first hand of the new game is one player clockwise from the dealer of the last hand of the previous game.
Hearts Passing
Hearts players can now set the passing option to “Around” or “Around Keep.” “Around” passing starts to the player’s left and rotates clockwise skipping the no-pass hand. “Around Keep” adds the no-pass hand.
Whist Fixed Deals
By request, we’ve changed Whist’s “Play # of Hands” game rule option to be 8, 12, and 16 instead of 4, 6, and 8.
Saturday, May 15, 2021
Hearts Love
We’ve added a collection of customer-requested rule options to Hearts:
- You can now choose to play with 5 or 6 players. If playing with 6, you can choose to play solo or in 3 teams of 2 players each or 2 teams of 3 each.
- Allow the player who leads to be the first player left of the dealer instead of the player holding the lowest club
- Allow points to be dumped on the first trick
When creating your next game, use the “More Games/Rules” button to access the Hearts Rules form and check out these new rule options.
Saturday, May 8, 2021
Club Event Notification
We have made a change so that Club members participating in club event games are notified when the first-round game is ready to join.
This notification is on by default but can be adjusted using the Notification setting. Set the “A Club Event is ready to join” option to “In App” to be notified only when you are already playing a game in Trickster Cards. “Anytime” means you will be notified by email and, if enabled, push notification. “Off” turns off these notifications altogether.
Saturday, April 24, 2021
Club Game Improvements
We’ve made a change so that Club event games can be started without all players present.
Sunday, April 18, 2021
Euchre for Six
Based on customer feedback, Euchre can now be played by 6 players in either 2v2v2 or 3v3 partnerships. Our 6-player version uses a 32-card deck (7–Ace) and disables “Go Under.” If playing 3v3, we further disable “Call for Best.” Other rules remain the same. Use the “More Games/Rules” button to access the Euchre Rules form and set the new “Players” option.
Tuesday, April 6, 2021
Pitch for Six
By popular request, we’ve added a 6-player option (3 teams of 2) for 4-, 5-, 6- and 9-point Pitch. Now, 6-player is available in all Pitch variations. Use the “More Games/Rules” button to access the Pitch Rules form and set the new option.
Friday, April 2, 2021
Euchre for 12 Hands
Based on customer requests, we’ve added a 12 hands option for Euchre when choosing to play the game for a fixed number of hands.
Wednesday, March 17, 2021
Play # of hands
We’ve added a game rules option that allows you to choose between playing to a game-over score or playing a fixed number of hands. To use the new option, create your game using the “More/Games Rules” button and, on the game rules form, set “Play” to “# of hands.” Choose either 4, 6, or 8 hands using the “Play # of hands” option.
When joining a game, check for the phrase “for n hands” in the rules summary. Don’t join the game if you prefer playing to a score.
This new feature is available in Spades, Euchre, Pitch, Hearts, Whist, 500, and Pinochle. Oh Hell and Bridge already have options to play a fixed number of hands.
Double Deck Pinochle to 300
Pinochle players may now choose 300 (3000 in Classic scoring) as the game over score when playing double deck. Use the “More/Games Rules” button to access the Pinochle Rules form and set the new option.
Tuesday, February 2, 2021
Updated Chips Purchasing
Users who purchase Trickster Chips and do so in a browser or browser-based app will see a revamped checkout process. New features include the ability to use Apple Pay or Google Pay when enabled on your device.
We continue to use Stripe for payment processing and we never see or store your credit card information.
