Card games for groups.
With two players, almost anything works. With six, half of all games drag and the other half turn chaotic. Here’s which of the five on this site are built for a full table.
Guide·updated ·4 min read
The two that work with six
Macao and Liar Liar. Both seat six, and both get BETTER the more of you there are, which is rare.
Macao gains from the fact that penalties travel around the table. A 3 played with six players passes through five people before it comes back to you, and along the way it can stack: a 3, then another 3, then a black joker. With two players that chain is impossible; with six it’s common, and it’s the best moment in the game.
Liar Liar gains from the fact that it’s harder to track who’s lying. With three players, the round’s rank comes back to you quickly and you can work out how many cards are left. With six, by the time it has gone around the table twenty cards have been laid face down and you can’t be sure of anything, which is exactly the state in which the game is fun.
Seven Cut stops at four
Seven Cut seats four at most, and it’s at its best with exactly three or four.
The reason is the deck: 32 cards, four in each hand. With five it wouldn’t stretch far enough. With three, two eights are removed so the deal comes out even, and the two remaining eights become cuts, like the sevens. That puts six cuts in play instead of four, which changes the math completely.
If there are five of you and you really want Seven Cut, one person sits out and watches, since the table is visible to anyone with the address. It isn’t ideal, but it beats a game that can’t be dealt.
How to keep everyone in the game
The biggest problem at a table of six isn’t the game, it’s the waiting. Five people watch while the sixth thinks.
The host sets the pace when opening the table: 10 seconds per move, 30, or no timer at all. With five or six players, 30 seconds is the right choice. 10 is too little for a penalty chain, and with no timer a big table bogs down the first time someone goes for coffee.
In Macao and Liar Liar, the match does NOT stop at the first player to run out of cards. Whoever finishes goes out and claims their place in the standings, and the others play on until only one is left. That means second and third place really get played for. Nobody sits idle once someone else has won.
If not everyone shows up
It happens all the time: you planned for six and four turned up. The host can seat bots in the empty seats, at two skill levels, and the match plays the same.
From the moment the first bot sits down, the table no longer counts toward the leaderboard, since a bot has no rating to put on the line. For an evening with friends that doesn’t matter; if you care about the leaderboard, wait for the people.
What about the people watching
A table is visible to anyone who has the address, even without an account. Anyone watching from the sidelines sees who’s playing and what cards are on the table, never anyone’s hand.
They can also talk in the room chat. They don’t need a seat at the table, just like at a real one: the people waiting for the next round are part of the evening.