House rules
The Big Two rules used at every table.
Session and seating
The host chooses how many hands make up the session. The four seats are randomized when the session begins and stay fixed until it ends. Play is clockwise in hand 1, counterclockwise in hand 2, and continues alternating every hand.
Goal and order
Be the first to empty your 13-card hand. Ranks rise from 3 through Ace, then 2. Suits break ties in the order ♦, ♣, ♥, ♠.
Starting a hand
The player holding 3♦ starts hand 1, and their opening combination must include 3♦. After that, the winner of the previous hand starts the next hand with any legal play.
Legal plays
SingleAny one card
PairTwo cards of one rank
TripleThree cards of one rank
Five cardsStraight, flush, full house, four of a kind plus one, or straight flush
Five-card combinations beat only other five-card combinations. Their order is straight, flush, full house, four of a kind, then straight flush. There are no cross-size bombs.
Straights and flushes
A 2 can never appear in a straight; Ace is high, with no wraparound. Flushes compare their highest card first, continuing downward until there is a difference.
Passing and timeouts
You may re-enter a trick after passing. After three consecutive passes, the last player to make a play leads a fresh trick. A disconnected player gets 60 seconds. On expiry, the game passes for them when responding, or plays their lowest single when they lead. Tables can also enable a 15, 30, 60, or 90-second turn timer, and the host may change it during play.
Session points
Every hand is zero-sum. Before the first deal, the host chooses points per remaining card and can enable three independent rules: an extra per-card rate from 2–12 remaining cards, a separate all-13-card rate, and fixed points for each leftover 2. Penalty rates use points, never multipliers, and each enabled per-card tier must be higher than the one before it. The winner receives the exact positive total of all three losses. Points accumulate across the session, and the highest final total wins.