Card Golf Rev. 2.8.1

Game Rules & Guidelines

Object of the Game

The object is to lower your total score as much as possible over the course of 9 or 18 complete holes (hands). The player with the lowest total score at the end wins.

Gameplay Flow

Each player manages a grid layout (2 rows of either 2, 3, 4, or 5 columns). Two cards start flipped face up. On your turn:

• Draw a face-down card from the Draw Pile or select the top card from the face-up Discard Pile.
• Swap the drawn card with any of your card spaces (face-up or face-down). Swapped cards are placed face up, and the replaced card goes to the Discard Pile.
• If you draw from the Draw Pile, you can opt to immediately dump that card face up into the Discard Pile.
• Forced Flip Rule: If enabled, immediately discarding a drawn card from the Draw Pile requires you to turn over one of your face-down cards. Exception: When you have only one face-down card remaining, it is exempt from the forced flip penalty.

Scoring

• Pairs: If 2 cards matching in rank are placed in the same vertical column, they cancel each other out and count as 0 points.
• Jokers / Twos: Worth -2 points depending on the active modifier.
• Kings (K): Worth 0 points.
• Aces (A): Worth 1 point.
• Cards 3 through 10: Count face point value.
• Jacks (J) & Queens (Q): Worth 10 points.

The Oracle

An advisor, not a boss — the decision stays yours. Press the 🔮 Oracle button on your turn:

• Before you draw: it compares drawing from the Draw Pile against taking the top discard into each of your slots.
• After you draw from the Draw Pile: it compares putting the card in each slot against dumping it (and, with the penalty on, which face-down card to flip).
• After you take the discard, or when a penalty flip is due: it compares each slot, or each face-down card.

How it ranks: every option is played out to the end of the hole 50,000 times on the shared Monte Carlo engine used across tedponderings.com. The options are ranked by net points — your score for the hole minus your opponent's — lowest first. Net points rather than your score alone because a card you discard becomes your opponent's next chance: a choice that helps you a little but hands the opponent a Joker is a bad choice, and only net points catch that. The bar beside each option shows how often you finish the hole with fewer points than the opponent.

What it knows: only unseen cards are dealt in the simulation. Every face-up card in both grids, the whole Discard Pile and the card in your hand are left out; your face-down cards, the opponent's face-down cards and the Draw Pile are dealt at random from the rest. The opponent is played by its own rule from this game. You, on your later turns, are played by the math: each card goes where it lowers your expected score most (face-down cards counted at the average of the cards you have not seen, allowing for the chance of a pair), or is dumped if nothing improves; the discard is taken when it beats the average draw. Each figure carries a 95% confidence margin, shown in the panel; two options within their margins of each other are statistically tied, and the panel says so.