How We Write These Guides

Where the rules come from

1. Published card room procedure comes first for games dealt commercially — the poker variants and blackjack. Where card rooms are consistent with one another, that version is treated as standard.
2. Established games compendia come first for household games such as Hearts, Spades and Gin Rummy, since there is no commercial authority to appeal to.
3. Widely played variations are named as variations. If a rule is common but not universal, the page says which is which rather than quietly choosing one.
4. Anything that cannot be settled is marked as a house rule and the reader is told to agree it before the first deal.

How a page is built

1. Fix the structure firstEvery game guide uses the same seven sections in the same order, so that a reader who knows one page knows where to look in all of them.
2. Write the order of play as a single handNot as a list of rules, but as one hand from the first card to the showdown, in the sequence it actually happens.
3. Add the rules that are broken most oftenDrawn from the procedural mistakes dealers correct most frequently rather than from the rule book’s own emphasis.
4. Define terms on the page that uses themEach guide carries its own terminology list, and every term also appears in the site Card Game Glossary.
5. Check the cross-referencesA rule explained in one place is linked, not repeated, so that a correction only has to be made once.

Editorial limits

• No strategy advice presented as a route to profit. Explaining why acting last is an advantage is a description of the rules; telling a reader which hands to raise is not something this site does.
• No operator reviews, affiliate links or bonus offers. Nothing on these pages is paid for or sponsored.
• No claims about winning. Card games played for stakes lose money for most players, and no page here suggests otherwise. See Bankroll Basics.
• No invented authority. Where a figure or a rule is disputed, the page says so instead of asserting a single answer.

Updates and corrections

Each page shows the date it was last reviewed, which is the date the rules on it were checked rather than the date a typographical change was made. A guide is reviewed whenever a reader reports a discrepancy, and in full at least once a year.

When a correction changes a rule rather than its wording, the change is made in the body of the page rather than appended as a note, so that the page always reads as the current version.