CoolhandThe games · Coolhand Poker
Spit in the Ocean
Four cards each and one face up in the middle that belongs to everyone, wild along with every card of its rank. One swap, two rounds of offers.
18+ · Nothing to win but the hand.
- Players
- 2 to 6
- Family
- Home Games
- App
- Coolhand Poker · iOS and Android, soon
How it goes
Each player takes four cards face down, and one more card is turned face up in the middle of the table. That middle card is part of every hand at once. It's also wild, meaning it can stand for any card you need, and so is every other card of the same rank. First comes a round of offers: put tokens in the pool, match what someone else put in, or pass. Then one swap, where you hand back any number of your four cards and take fresh ones. Another round of offers follows, then the reveal. The best five-card hand made from your four cards and the middle card takes the pool.
A good hand
A hand that has counted the wild cards. Everyone holds one for certain, the card in the middle, so a hand is measured against what one wild card makes for everybody. A natural pair in your four is already three of a kind, and a natural three of a kind is already four. Four unmatched cards plus the wild one in the middle is exactly what the whole table has, so hope for a pair or better in your own four.
The usual mistake
Valuing your hand as if the middle card were yours alone. Every player has it, and every player can make it whatever they like. What separates the hands is the four cards in front of you, so a hand that only looks good because of the middle card looks good for everybody.
Played differently where you are?
Card games change from table to table, and we researched some of these games instead of playing them. If Spit in the Ocean 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.