How to play Classic Macao

Empty your hand, and empty it early, because in Macao the points are damage. Whoever goes out scores nothing and everybody else is charged for what is stranded in their hand. Reach the target and you have lost: the lowest total wins.

Macao is played with 54 cards, a full pack plus two jokers, 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, so a round opens on a plain card.

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. Aces and jokers play on anything.

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

A joker has no rank to repeat, so once one is on top only the suit it named will follow it, plus the cards that play on anything.

The seven cuts: it kills a whole stack of draws waiting on you and leaves its own suit in force. It draws nothing and skips nobody.

The ace plays on anything and lets you name the suit that follows. So does a joker, which is what makes it worth so much and so dangerous to hold.

A two adds two cards to the stack against the next player, a three adds three, the black joker five and the red joker ten. The king of hearts adds five forwards; the king of spades adds five backwards, so it is the player before you who answers it.

The four makes the next player lose a turn. They can play a four of their own to add another and pass the whole thing on.

Only two of the kings fight here. The kings of diamonds and clubs are ordinary cards.

Draw cards pool. A two lands on a three, a joker lands on either, and the player facing the pile owes all of it at once: an umflătură of fifteen cards is exactly what the name is for.

There are two ways out, and only two: add a draw card of your own and pass it on bigger, or play a seven and cut it dead. An ordinary matching card is not an escape and neither is an ace. The seven defends, the ace steers.

Take a stack and you take every card of it and your turn is over. If the pack cannot produce what is owed you take what there is and the rest is forgiven.

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 red joker is for the player sitting on two cards, not the one sitting on nine.

The player who goes out scores zero. Everybody else counts what is left in their hand and is charged for it.

The whole pack is worth 1100, which is why a target of 500 arrives in four to eight rounds and why being caught with the king of hearts once can be the whole match.

A round nobody wins, the pack spent and nobody able to move, 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 or a joker 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.