How to play Simple Macao

Empty your hand, and empty it early, because in Macao the points are damage. This is the game with the jokers taken out and a draw card answered only by its own rank, so a stack stays small enough to plan around. Whoever goes out scores nothing; the lowest total wins.

This game is played with 52 cards, the pack with no jokers in it, by two to six players. Everybody gets five cards, one more is turned face up to start the pile, and the rest is the face-down stock.

If the card turned up is one that does something it is buried and another is turned.

Leaving the jokers out takes the heaviest cards in the game off the table, and with them the only card that both attacks and names a suit.

1. Play a card that matches the suit in force or repeats the rank on top.

2. Or take one card from the stock. That is legal even when you hold something playable, and hoarding the seven is half the game. If the card you take fits, you may play it there and then.

3. If a stack of draws or a lost turn is waiting on you, that is the only thing you may deal with.

Play your last card and the round ends immediately. When the stock runs out, the top card of the pile stays put and everything under it is shuffled face down to make a new one.

A card plays when it shares the suit in force or repeats the rank on top. With no jokers in the pack, the ace is the only card that plays on anything at all.

The suit in force is not always the suit of the card you can see. Right after somebody plays an ace and names a suit, that is the suit to follow, so read the marker beside the pile rather than the card.

The seven cuts: it kills a whole stack of draws waiting on you and leaves its own suit in force. The ace plays on anything and lets you name the suit, and here it is the only card that does either.

A two adds two cards, a three three. The king of hearts adds five forwards, the king of spades five backwards; the kings of diamonds and clubs are ordinary cards. The four makes the next player lose a turn.

There are no jokers, so nothing here adds ten cards out of nowhere, and no single card costs a hundred points to be caught with.

Draw cards still pool, but only with their own kind: a two goes on a two, a three on a three, a king on a king. A three cannot be answered with a two, and that one rule keeps an umflătură here small enough to plan around. Four threes are twelve cards, and twelve is the biggest stack this game can build.

There are still exactly two ways out: pass it on bigger with a card of the same kind, or play a seven and cut it dead.

Take a stack and you take every card of it and your turn is over.

When you are reduced to a single card the table says Macao for you. Nobody is fined here for being slow to speak: a mis-tap or a bad connection is not the kind of mistake this game should punish.

Everybody's card count is visible the whole way through, and it is the read the game is built on. The three you have been holding is for the player sitting on two cards, not the one sitting on nine.

The player who goes out scores zero. Everybody else is charged for their hand.

There is no joker to be caught with, so the hundred-point card is out of the game and the whole pack is worth 900 instead of 1100. The same target takes a round or two longer to reach and one bad hand is far less likely to decide the match, which is exactly what this game is for.

A round nobody wins charges every player for their hand, with a zero for no one.

The match ends the moment somebody's total reaches the target, 500 by default, and that player has lost. This is a race you want to lose slowly.

The winner is the lowest total on the board. If two players finish level at the bottom, the match is drawn.

Open the scores at the top of the table whenever you like.

Tap a card to pick it up, then use the button under your hand to play it, or tap it again to change your mind. You can also drag a card into the middle of the table, or sideways in your hand to reorder it. An illegal card will not stick to the pile.

Play an ace and the table asks which suit you want before the card lands. The suit in force is marked beside the pile from then on.

The buttons only offer what the rules allow. When a stack is live, the number of cards it will cost you is on the table where you can see it.

A practice match runs entirely on your device against bots, with no connection needed. A bot sees only what any opponent could see: your hand and the stock order stay hidden, so it cannot cheat.

Online, a bot steps in for a player who has gone quiet, so the table keeps moving.