Trickster Cards Bridge

Free, Live, Social Play – Your Way Let the fun begin. Play the games you love with friends and family or get matched with other live players at your level. Trickster Cards offers customizable rules, so you can play cards your way! Real People, Right Now Select “Play” and Trickster Cards finds other players based on skill and speed. Select “Join” and Trickster Bridge helps you invite friends and family to a game. Turn on notifications to hear about friends’ games anytime. Now game night lives on wherever you are. Your House, Your Rules Play Chicago or Rubber Bridge with ACBL Standard Yellow Card bidding conventions. Throw in the Honors Bonus, if you like.

Store/trickster Cards Bridge online, free

Welcome to Trickster Cards!

When you arrive, you’ll first be presented with a list of card games to choose from:

After choosing a card game, you can decide how you want to play:

Game page options

Each of these options is described below.

Play

The Play option places you into a game with any available players, based on your past play speed and average hand score. If this is your first “Play” game, you will play it alone.

After your first game, if an existing game is available, you will be placed into it. If no game is available, a new game will be started with three computer players and others may be placed into your newly-created game. “Play” games are timed and give you only 6 to 15 seconds to play a card (the actual time is adjusted by the play speed of the players in the game).

After you click “Play,” you’ll see the currently popular rules for that game. The “bars” meter indicates the relative popularity of each rule set.

Example popular rules in Trickster Spades

If you don’t see the game or rules you like to play, click or tap the “More Games/Rules” button and build a game the way you like it. Others may join into your game if they choose the same rules. If your custom rules become popular, they may make it to the “Popular Rules” list.

New users are asked to enter a player name before the game is created. You may change this player name later by clicking or tapping the name displayed in the upper right corner of the introductory pages.

Users who have previously created accounts with email addresses should Sign In. New users can click Sign In and then Sign Up to create email accounts. Creating an account allows you to share friends, statistics, achievements, and Trickster Chips across games and devices.

Users with a play history are matched to existing games based on their average hand score and play speed. The matching algorithm avoids matching high-score players with low-score players and slow players with fast players. New users without a play history are assumed to be slightly below average in both hand score and play speed.

For best matching, Sign Up for an account (only a name, email addresses, and password are needed) and Sign In whenever you play. This account can be used with all Trickster Cards games on all devices and ensures that your play statistics, friends, and achievements will follow you.

Join

The Join option gives you the choice of joining a friend’s active game (if any), a game created by a friend who sent you a 5-character join code, or creating a new game for inviting others. Join games are also the only kind which allow real-time video and voice chat.

To join a friend’s displayed active game, simply click or tap the game’s button shown immediately below the “Join Friends’ Game” title.

To join a game using the 5-character code you received from a friend, click “I Have an Invite to a Game,” enter the code on the next panel, and click or tap the “Join” button.

To create a new game and invite others, click or tap a rules set in the “Create a New Game” section or choose “More Rules” to build your own rule set. When your options are selected, click or tap “OK.” New users are asked to enter a player name before the game is created.

Whether you created a game from listed rules or built your own, you will start the game on a pre-game page where you will see two buttons in the center of the page. One button opens the Invite Friends form and the other starts the game.

Clicking the Invite Friends button allows you to invite friends you have in the Trickster Cards system.

Invite Friends form

The friends shown in the “Select friends to invite” list are your Trickster Cards friends who Trickster Cards can contact on your behalf. Other friends are omitted from this list but can be viewed by clicking the “All Friends” button.

Friends who Trickster Cards can invite are:

• Friends currently playing in a Trickster Cards’ app. These friends are indicated with the solid circle.
• Friends not currently playing but who have enabled in-app notifications and have allowed invitations to be sent to them. These are indicated with the bell symbol.
• Friends not currently playing but who have email address accounts and have allowed invitations to be emailed to them. These are indicated with the envelope icon.

If the friend(s) you want to invite are listed, click the box left of their name and click OK. Trickster Cards will contact them by either an in-game notification, an app notification on their phone or PC, or by email.

You may also manually share or email the 5-character code displayed in the “Tell new friends to join using code” box. You can either select and copy the code displayed or use the Email/Shared Code button to its right.

Finally, if you know the email address of a friend you’d like to invite to play, you can enter that in the “Friends’ emails” box and click OK. We’ll send an email invitation on your behalf.

When any of the friends you’ve invited joins your game, a friend relationship will be established in our system. This may make it easier to invite them in the future.

When your friends have joined the game and you’re ready to start, click the “Start game” button in the center of the board. Invited friends can join even after the game has started.

Practice

The Practice option creates a new game against three computer players. You may choose one of the listed rule sets or build your own custom rules before starting the practice game. No other players will join this game. New users are asked to enter a player name before the game is created.

Compete

Compete games offer you the opportunity to win Trickster Chips in competition with other real players. Trickster Chips have no cash value, and cannot be redeemed or refunded. Learn more at About Compete.

Game Help

For help regarding the rules and options for the specific Trickster Cards’ games, see any of the following:

Feedback

Feel free to ask us questions or send us feedback on your game play experience using our Send Feedback form.

Thanks!

Thanks for playing a Trickster Cards game!

This help file does not try to explain the game of bridge. Instead, it explains certain details of the Trickster Bridge implementation.

Bidding

Trickster Bridge supports the bidding conventions of the Standard American Yellow Card (SAYC). This Preview recognizes a large subset of possible SAYC bids. When we encounter an unimplemented sequence, our computer players will pass or suggest you pass.

Screen shot showing first bid

We present possible bids using a digital replica of a standard bidding box. We highlight the suggested bid in yellow; suggestions to pass, double, and redouble are highlighted with a white glow around the button. During bidding, we display your count of high card points at the bottom of the screen.

Trickster Cards Bridge Free

Bidding box with 1♣ suggested

When you move your mouse over any bid (or press and hold on a bid on a touch screen), we display a bubble explaining the bid.

Hovering over the 1♠ bid shows what it means

To make a bid, simply click or tap it.

After all players have placed their first bids, the game board will look similar to this:

Note how players’ bids are displayed. If you click or tap a placed bid, we explain what that bid means in SAYC.

Explanation of LHO’s bid

Play of the Hand

Once the final contract is established, the declarer’s bid is displayed over his or her cards. The count of the number of tricks taken is displayed after the declarer’s name followed by a slash and the number of tricks required to fulfill the contract.

Play begins with the player to the declarer’s left leading. The dummy’s cards are exposed after the lead which is the first play of the dummy.

Board with dummy exposed

On large enough screens, the dummy is displayed in traditional layout; on smaller screens it displays as a flat spread of cards.

Play proceeds as you’d expect. Click or tap a card to play it. Your suggested card is displayed slightly raised. In the Preview, these suggestions are dummy-aware but still sub-optimal; no conventions are followed for the defensive lead.

Declarer Play

When you are the declarer, you play both your hand and the dummy’s hand. Dummy’s suggested cards are displayed slightly left-shifted. In both hands, you simply click or tap a card to play it.

Board showing dummy’s suggested card

Scorecard

The scorecard is displayed automatically at the end of each hand. You can display it at other times by choosing the Scores item from the main menu.

Scorecard after two hands

The scorecard shows contract and bonus points for each team along with a total at the bottom. It also displays an explanation of the points awarded in the last hand. Game winners are designated by the dotted line with the small arrow indicating the team that won that game.

The score summary in the lower right corner of the screen (displayed only when there’s room) shows the total score for each team, an indication of which team is vulnerable, if any, and, in Chicago bridge, the traditional X display indicating the current hand out of four.

Score summary during hand 3

Bridge House Rules Options

When

“Now” creates a new game that starts immediately. Other options schedule a game for a time in the next 24 hours. Compete and Join games only.

Winnings

Three levels of winnings based on the buy-in level—30, 110, 275 or 550 Trickster Chips. Compete games only.

Variation

“Chicago” is always four deals scored Chicago-style. “Rubber” is played until one team completes two games of 100 contract points each or for a set number of deals (see Number of Deals, below).

Partscores

“+50 Bonus” awards a 50 point bonus for partscores (duplicate style). “Carry Forward” means partscores carry forward from deal-to-deal to make game (rubber style). Chicago variation only.

Number of deals

“4”: exactly 4 deals are played. “6”: Exactly 6 deals are played “No Limit”: deals continue until one team wins 2 games. Rubber variation only.

SAYC bidding

“Yes” shows explanations for bids using SAYC conventions. “No”: bid explanations are disabled. Note: Trickster Bridge’s computer players (bots) always bid SAYC conventions. Join games only.

Honors bonus

“Yes” awards a bonus of 150 points if team is holding 10–A of trump; 100 points if holding 4 of 10–A in trump. If playing a No Trump contract, 150 points are awarded if holding all four aces. “No” means no honors bonus awarded.

Review last deal

“Yes” displays the cards and bids of all players after each deal. All players must explicitly continue to the next deal. “No” means the game progresses to the next deal immediately. Join and Practice games only.

Best hand to me

“Yes” gives the hand with the highest opening bid to the practicing player following a random deal. “No”: all hands are dealt randomly. Practice games only.

Allow undo

“Bids & Cards” allows players to undo their previous card plays and bids. “Bids” allows only bids to be undone. “No” does not allow any undo. Join and Practice games only.

Limits

Must be invited

“Yes” hides this game from other players until they’ve been explicitly invited using the “Invite Friends” form. “No” allows all friends of players in this game to see it. Join games only.

Allow suggestions

“Yes” to allow players to see bid and card play suggestions, depending on their personal setting. “No” prevents all players from seeing suggestions. Always “Yes” in Play games; “No” in Compete games.

Trickster Cards Bridge Online

Allow watching:

“Yes” allows up to 10 additional players to watch the game. They do not see anyone’s cards. “No” prevents anyone from watching. Join games only.

Chat during game

“None” disables all chat during the game. “Preset” allows only the built-in chat messages to be used. “Text” allows full chat. Full chat is also always available before and after games. Always “Preset” in Play games; “None” in Practice games.

Time to bid

Specifies an optional time limit for a player to bid. “Off” means there are no time limits on bidding. “7s,”“15s,”, “30s” & “60s” sets a limit to bid of 7, 15, 30 or 60 seconds, respectively. Automatically set in Play games.

Trickster Cards Download

Time to play

Trickster Cards Bridge Free Download

Specifies an optional time limit for a player to play a card. “Off” means there are no time limits on card play. “7s,”“15s,”, “30s” & “60s” sets a limit to play a card of 7, 15, 30 or 60 seconds, respectively. Automatically set in Play games.