CoolhandThe games · Coolhand Poker
Follow the Queen
Seven cards, some dealt face up for all to see, with every queen wild and the rank dealt face up right after a queen wild too, until another queen shows.
18+ · Nothing to win but the hand.
- Players
- 2 to 6
- Family
- Home Games
- App
- Coolhand Poker · iOS and Android, soon
How it goes
You get seven cards in stages, some face down and some face up for everyone to see: two down and one up to start, then three more up, and the last one down. Between stages there's a round of offers: put tokens in the pool, match what another player put in, or pass. Every queen is wild: it can stand for any card you need. And a queen brings a friend: the card dealt face up right after a queen makes its whole rank wild too. When another queen shows face up, the wild rank moves to whatever follows that queen. If the last card dealt face up is a queen, only the queens are wild, unless the table plays it another way. At the reveal the best hand takes the pool.
A good hand
Read the table before you read your own hand. A wild rank can vanish on the very next card, so a hand built on it is worth less than the same hand built on queens, which don't move. The strongest holdings are good with the wild rank and still fair without it: a real pair, a real flush draw, cards that stand on their own if the rank moves.
The usual mistake
Chasing a hand that only the current wild rank makes. When a new queen turns up, the wild rank moves, and the hand you were drawing to can turn into two unrelated cards in one deal. Count what you hold without the borrowed rank before you put tokens in.
Played differently where you are?
Card games change from table to table, and we researched some of these games instead of playing them. If Follow the Queen goes differently where you play it, tell us. That's one of the things the closed beta is for.
The closed beta is by invitation. How to ask to join.