Page 5 - January_Newsletter_2021

The site - https://playingcards.io/ - seems to be free (I certainly don’t recall parting with money,
nor even having to sign up – but that is an option). It also seems to be free from adverts – at least
while I have been playing.

The other point is – it is not an app. That means you don’t have to download anything to your

device, you just access it via a web browser.
I have played games against Windows and Apple users without any major problems.

The neat thing about this site is that it is like the ‘real thing ,’it is up to the players to enforce the
rules.

This is good because many games have ‘local ’variations.

However, it does mean that you have to be on the ball and watch what the other players are doing
– which is not a bad thing.

The one downside is that you cannot see how many cards are left in the other hands.

This site does not have any audio/visual features, so you will need to use Zoom or Teams or other
system to allow each player to hear what is happening. I usually turn off the visual aspect of
Zoom, as I prefer to concentrate on the cards, rather than see the other players. However, for
.
something like poker, you may want to see if the others are ‘sweating ’

There are a number of ‘pre-configured ’ games available; however I configured the system for
Canasta – which isn’t one of the default games.

Canasta uses two decks of cards, and each player is dealt 11 cards – both of which are configurable
options. The playing area (table) can be configured with the names of the players and where the
deck of cards is placed, along with any discard pile required.

It should be noted that configuring these options is straight forward – but the first time might be a
challenge 

Having configured the game – the cards, the players and the dealing rules – you can save this defi-
nition to your local machine for reloading at a later date.

Once the game has been setup, the other players simply need the URL 'for this game'.

They can then see the ‘playing area .’In fact all the players see the same table layout.

All the card movements on the table are immediately seen by all the players – which is pretty neat.

Each player has a local area on the screen that holds their own cards and which is not seen by the
others.

I suggest that you take a look at the site and then find some others to join in and play some card
games to while away the next couple of months!

Barry