Help is organized in the following sections.
NeuralPlay Oh Hell supports many Oh Hell variants such as Romanian Whist and La Podrida. The default rules for NeuralPlay Oh Hell are described here. Custom rule options are described in this section.
NeuralPlay Oh Hell is played with 4 players and makes use of the standard 52 card deck. The play is broken down into hands. Hands are played until the game is over.
Each hand consists of four stages: dealing, bidding, playing, and scoring.
At the start of the game, the dealer is chosen randomly. From then on, the deal rotates clockwise until the game ends. For the first hand, each player is dealt 10 cards and 1 card is turned face-up to determine the trump suit, the trump suit is the suit of the face-up card. The cards remaining in the deck are not in play for this hand. On subsequent hands, the number of cards dealt to each player decreases by 1 until only 1 card is dealt to each player. After reaching 1 card, the number of cards dealt increases by 1 until 10 cards are again dealt to each player. This hand of 10 cards ends the game.
Bidding begins with the player to the left of the dealer and rotates clockwise. Each player bids the number of tricks they expect to capture this hand. The dealer is the last to bid and may not bid such that the total sum of the bids is equal to the number of tricks available this hand. This rules is known as the hook rule and ensures that at least one player does not make their bid exactly.
The play consists of tricks, with each trick consisting of 4 cards, 1 card from each player. For each trick, there is a leader, a suit led, and a winner. The leader is the player who plays the first card. The suit led is the suit of the card played by the leader. The winner of the trick is determined by the best card played of the suit led. However, if a trump card was played on the trick, then the winner is determined by the best trump card played.
The best card in a given suit is determined by the rank of the card. Here are the card rankings in increasing order: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, T, J, Q, K, and A.
The player to the left of the dealer leads first. Play continues clockwise with each player playing a card in turn. Players must play the suit led if they have the suit led. If a player does not have the suit led, any card may be played.
After each player has played a card on the trick, the winning player takes the trick and places it aside until the scoring stage. This player is the leader of the next trick. Play continues until players have no cards left in their hands.
After the hand has been played out, players receive 1 point for each trick captured and 10 points as a bonus if the number of tricks captured is equal the the number bid.
The player who has the most points at the end of the game is the winner.
There are many helpful web sites discussing Oh Hell and its variants. Here are a few we found helpful.
Oh Hell can be played with many different rule options. We have included some preset rules to show some of the variety. See Rule Options to customize the rules.
We have preset options for the following game rules.NeuralPlay Oh Hell offers many features to help you learn and improve your play. These features may be enabled, disabled, and/or adjusted in settings. The features include the following.
Many different variations of Oh Hell are played around the world. NeuralPlay's Oh Hell offers many popular rule options for you to customize the game to your liking. Options include the following.
NeuralPlay computer players offer 6 levels of play. Play at level 1 is reasonably easy and good for beginners. Play at level 3 should be fun for most players. Play at level 6 will be the most challenging.
The AI bots employ different AI methods depending on the level. Levels 1 and 2 use simple methods to provide an introduction to beginners. We will not describe them in detail here.
Level 3 uses a rule-based AI. The AI consists of rules such as: "In 1st seat, lead low when I do not want tricks" and "In 4th seat, play just high enough to take it when I want tricks", etc. We find the rules work quite well and can provide good play.
Levels 4+ use Monte Carlo Simulation to determine the best play. Basically, the AI will deal out the unknown cards randomly. The AI will then try each legal play and play the deal to the end to get a result. This is repeated for many deals of the unknown cards. The average result for each legal play is computed and the legal play with the best average result is chosen.
Levels 4+ differ in how many times the unknown cards are dealt out. In general, the more deals the more accurate the simulation. This results in better quality plays. The trade-off is that more deals take more time, play may be slower on level 6 than level 4 depending on the device.
Since levels 4+ do not use rules, you may observe either surprisingly good plays or odd mistakes that may seem not to follow any logical rules. Overall, our tests show that the levels are better than the rule-based level 3. We also find the randomness makes the computer feel a bit more human-like and fun.
If you prefer a more consistent, logical, and predictable partner AI and/or opponent AI, then level 3 may be best.
We are continuing to research improvements and new computer AI algorithms. We continue to update the bots as we develop improved algorithms.
See Settings -> Hand Sorting. You can change the rank order, suit order, and choose to alternate red and black suits.
Go to the Main Screen and choose Menu -> Reset.
These terms are used in bridge games. You are always South and your partner is always North. The terms You and South are used interchangeably.
Claim means you will take the remaining tricks. When your hand is clearly high, you may claim the remaining tricks to speed up play. If the claim is successful (the AI will check), you will receive the remaining tricks and the hand will end.
Please contact us at support@neuralplay.com .