Play Continental online

Seven hands of ever-harder sets and runs: go out before anyone else.

Playing Continental online

Continental is the longest game in the house: seven hands back to back, each demanding a different and harder combination than the last. Plan for a long session rather than a quick game between two other things.

It seats 2 to 6. With 5 or 6 the final hands get genuinely hard, because the cards you need are spread across more people and the deck comes round to you less often.

The table validates combinations for you: it checks whether what you are trying to lay down satisfies the current hand, handles wild cards, and keeps the running score across all seven hands.

What gets settled before the deal

The host picks how many of the seven hands you play, from 1 to 7. All seven is the longest game in the house; three or four hands fit an ordinary evening without anyone leaving halfway through.

Your first game

Forming a set or a run is not going down. The cards move out of your hand into your own tray, they are still yours, and you undo the combination by tapping it. Going down is the part that is final, and it is allowed once per hand, so the table asks first and shows you exactly which cards are leaving.

The face-up discard does not go to whoever calls for it first: it is offered in turn order. And a player who is not on turn can take it anyway by paying a penalty card - the steal - without using up their turn or interrupting anyone. It is the mechanic that surprises people most on a first game.

The clock is thirty seconds, the longest in the house alongside Poker, because sorting twelve cards and checking whether they satisfy the hand does not happen in fifteen.

How to start a game

1. Create a room from this page and share the code on screen with whoever is playing.
2. Everyone opens House Of Decks, enters that code and takes a seat at the table.
3. Once there are between 2 and 6 of you, the host deals and the game begins.
4. If you would rather not organise anything, drop into Quick Play and play with whoever is waiting.

Deck: Two standard 52-card decks plus 4 jokers (108 cards total) · Players: 2 to 6 players

Full rules for Continental