How to Play

Pause Game

At a bot table, Pause Game (top right, beside ☰) freezes the game — the bots, your turn clock and every timer — and covers the cards until you press Resume. Paused time is never counted. Live tables keep playing, so the button appears only against the bots.

Our table’s take on Tiến Lên — the climbing game where you shed all thirteen cards and the first one out wins the hand.

The play

Lead a single, a pair / triple / quad, a straight (3+ ranks in a row, never a 2), or a run of pairs (3+ consecutive pairs). To follow, match the shape and length with something stronger. Every card has a unique strength: ranks climb 3 (low) up to 2 (high), and within a rank the suits order ♦ < ♣ < ♥ < ♠. The humble 3♦ opens the first hand.

Passing & bombs

Passing locks you out for the rest of the hand; when everyone else is out, the last to play clears the table and leads fresh. The 2s (the heos) rule the singles until someone bombs — a quad or a 3-pair run chops a single 2, a 4-pair run chops a pair of them. Bombs only ever target 2s and other bombs.

Table settings (the ☰ menu)

Everything below lives in the ☰ menu on the game board, and your choices are saved for next time. Pick them the first time you play, or change them whenever you like — the board waits with a Start Game button, so nothing deals until you say so.

Bot difficulty — pick your poison, and don't trust the names. Friendly is here for the snacks and plays for fun, not blood. Ruthless talks a big game but plays it safe — sound, steady, all bark. And then there's Family: it plans every hand, hoards control, and takes no prisoners. Ruthless on steroids, because nobody fights dirtier than family. Mastery sits on top of the ladder — it counts every card you've played and reads you like a menu. A change takes effect on the next deal, never mid-hand.

Table pace — Relaxed, Steady, or Brisk. Pace sets both how fast the bots play and how long your turn clock runs before the table moves on (roughly 45s / 25s / 12s). A countdown shows on your turn.

On timeout — what happens when your clock runs out: Pass Me passes for you whenever passing is legal (and only lets a bot step in when you're forced to lead, so you're never bombed out for going idle), or Bot Plays hands your move to a bot every time.

Hints — off by default. On your turn the cards that can’t join any play go dim, and a Hint button picks a play. Professional plays it like cards across a real table: no hints, no dimmed cards, no Hint button and no auto pass. At a live table it is a rule for the whole table, chosen by the host when the table opens, and it starts on.

Ready Check — at a live table the host can turn it on in the ☰ menu: everyone presses Ready, and the deal waits until all have.

Auto-pass — when nothing in your hand can beat the pile, pass for you automatically instead of making you click.

Where it comes from

Tiến Lên is Vietnamese for "go forward" — one of the great Asian climbing games, a cousin of Big Two and the Western game President. The house rules and the bombs are ours; going forward belongs to everyone.

A house standard built on Big Two — Chor Dai Di (鋤大地) — the climbing game where you shed all thirteen cards, the winner calls Bonzai!, and the table answers Ai yah!

The play

Lead a single, a pair, a triple, or a five-card poker hand — a straight, a flush, a full house, four of a kind with a kicker, or a straight flush. To follow, match the shape with something stronger. Ranks climb 3 (low) up to 2 (high), and within a rank the suits order ♦ < ♣ < ♥ < ♠. The 3♦ opens the very first hand, and the first player to empty their hand wins — announce your last card before you play it.

The Bonzai Standard

Our rulings are codified and versioned: a suited 2-high straight flush tops the royal, four of a kind can be thrown away for free, and a play the whole table can't answer leads itself. On singles the house blocks at all costs. The last-card announcement is a table event — the flag flies and the call goes up.

Table settings (the ☰ menu)

Bot difficulty runs Friendly, Family, Ruthless, Mastery — and don't trust the names. Family plans every hand and takes no prisoners; Mastery counts every card you've played. Table pace is Relaxed, Steady, or Brisk.

Auto Pass passes for you when your hand can't answer the pile. Last-Card Duty (off by default) puts the leader on the hook to block a player down to their last card. Hints (off by default) light up your legal plays. Professional plays it like cards across a real table: no hints and no auto pass — at a live table it is the host's rule for the whole table, and it starts on. Daily Table deals every player the identical hand, like duplicate bridge; Live Table opens a seat for friends with a join code. Your choices are saved for next time.

Where it comes from

Big Two — Chor Dai Di in Cantonese, literally dig up the big deuce — took hold across Hong Kong, Guangdong and Southeast Asia, with cousins in Vietnam's tiến lên and Japan's daifugō. Ours is our family's version, learned at the table and named for the shout.

The frantic solitaire race of the North American kitchen table — everyone plays at once, hands colliding on shared foundations, and speed takes the hand.

The play

You work four columns of your own and a 13-card Nerts pile, but the piles in the middle are shared: anyone starts one with an ace and builds it up in suit, and the card that lands first takes the spot. Your columns build down in alternating colours; an empty column takes any card except an ace, and aces always go to the middle. Empty your Nerts pile and call Nerts! to end the race.

Your deck

Choose how you turn your deck in Table Options. 3 at a time: turn three, play the top one, and start the deck over as often as you like; when both sides are stuck you may agree to a shift (each deck's top card goes to the bottom), three per hand. 1 at a time: turn one card at a time and go through your deck three times; there are no shifts, and a spent deck says so.

Ending a hand

A hand ends when someone calls Nerts. It also ends when nobody has a play left, or when both players agree to Propose End — available from the deal in 1-at-a-time, and after the last shift in 3-at-a-time. With Must Play on, you propose an end only when you have no play yourself.

The count

Every card you land in the middle is +1, every card still in your Nerts pile is −1, and calling Nerts adds +10. An ended hand counts the same way, without the +10. Play to 200.

Partners: at four, two play to a side and pool their foundations. One partner holds the Nerts pile in hand, so the other team doesn't see its top card (the table can choose face up). With two players the top card is always face up.

Playing it here

Click a card with a play and every spot it can reach lights up; click the spot and the right cards move. Double-click makes the best single move for you. Dragging works too.

Table settings (the ☰ menu)

Table Options holds the deck style, Must Play, Card Counts (on: every pile's count against the House, only your own at a live table), Undo Last Play, Ready Check, Bot Chat, Animations and Auto Deal. Professional plays it like real cards across a table: no assist or highlights, no double-click moves, no counts, no undo, and nothing moves by itself. A live table starts in Professional; the host can turn it off. Assist highlights your best play — or, against the House, makes it. At a live table the host's deck and Must Play settings apply to both players, and a player who closes the page by accident is offered their seat and cards back.

Where it comes from

Nerts — Nertz, Pounce, Peanuts — is North America's racing solitaire, a whole table playing patience at the same time on the same middle piles. The name is what you shout the instant your pile runs out.