The game. You (Hoss) and Slim are partners against Tex and Dusty. Each hand, everyone bids once for the right to name trump. The winning bidder leads, and players must follow the suit led if they can. A hand holds 42 points: 1 for each of the 7 tricks, plus the count dominoes (5-5 and 6-4 are worth 10; 5-0, 4-1 and 3-2 are worth 5).
Bids. Bids of 30 to 42 are worth 1 mark. 84 is worth 2 marks and 126 is worth 3. Those mark bids still need only all 42 points; they just pay more. If the bidding team falls short, the other team gets the marks. First team to 7 marks wins.
The computer players. Slim, Tex and Dusty bid only when their hand is worth it, and they name the trump that suits their hand best. In play they pull trumps, cash their winners, feed count to their partner's tricks and keep it away from the other side. Slim remembers every domino played and who is out of which suit. He bids over you only with a very strong hand. Tex and Dusty play a notch below him: they keep track of trumps and doubles only.
History. The History button shows every hand of the game so far: who bid, the trump, how it came out, and each trick.
The Oracle. The 🔮 Oracle button is your optional advisor. It never plays for you, and the computer players don't use it.
It can't see the other hands, so it deals the hidden dominoes at random 50,000 times for each choice you have, then plays each hand out to the end. The rest of each hand is played the way this game's computer players play: your seat and Slim's at Slim's level, Tex and Dusty at theirs.
When a player fails to follow suit, the Oracle knows they hold none of that suit, and it only uses deals that agree. Bids are not used as evidence.
At your bid it tries all nine trumps and shows your chance of reaching each bid level. At your trump pick it ranks the trumps by your chance of making your bid. On your turn it ranks each domino you may play by your team's chance of winning the hand: making the bid if your side bid, or setting it if theirs did.
The ± number beside each chance is the 95% margin. If two choices are within each other's margins, the Oracle says they're statistically tied.
