Dealer's Lattice In development · iPhone, iPad, Mac

A logic puzzle with a poker vocabulary

Every row is a hand. So is every column.

The rails around the board name the poker hand each line has to make. Place your cards so every rail is met. There is exactly one way to do it, and you can prove every card before you play it. No luck, no guessing.

Scroll to solve this board
Tray
9♠
9♦
3♠
6♣
K♦

The rails

Poker hands make unusually good clues.

Each hand locks down a different part of a card. Cross a flush row with a straight column and the cell where they meet usually comes down to a single card.

FlushEvery size

Every card in the line shares a suit. One card placed tells you the suit of all the others.

9♠
3♠
10♠

StraightEvery size

Consecutive ranks, aces high only. No rank can appear twice in the line.

7♥
8♣
9♦

Two Pair4×4 and up

Exactly two ranks appear twice. Find one pair and the other is half found.

8♠
8♦
2♥
2♣

Full House5×5 only

Three of one rank and two of another. Once one rank is doubled, the count does the rest.

Q♠
Q♥
Q♦
4♣
4♠

No HandEvery size

Nothing at all. No pair, no flush, no straight. It rules out everything else, which makes it the sharpest clue on the board.

A♣
6♠
K♦

House rule A rail means exactly that hand, not "at least". A full house does not satisfy a two-pair rail.

Fair play

Nine ways to be sure.

Every board in the game can be solved with these nine techniques and nothing else. If a board would need a guess, the generator throws it out before it ever ships.

  1. T1Last-cell forcingEverything else in the line is placed; the last card is decided.
  2. T2Suit lockA flush rail fixes the suit of every open cell in that line.
  3. T3Rank distinctnessA straight rail forbids any repeated rank.
  4. T4Pool exhaustionThere is one ♠9, and this is the only place it fits.
  5. T5Intersection pinThe row's suit meets the column's rank, and one card survives.
  6. T6Exactness exclusionLegal for the row, but it would push the column past its hand.
  7. T7Distribution forcingA full house with one rank already doubled forces the three.
  8. T8Cross-line countingTwo lines both want the last ♥K; only one arrangement works.
  9. T9Chained inferenceA card forced two lines away is what unlocks this cell.

240 levels · six chapters

Deeper into the house.

Start at the draw and work your way back to the vault. Boards grow from 3×3 to 5×5, and the rails pick up the rest of the poker ranking along the way.

Lessons3×3

How to Play

Three short lessons, about a minute. Skip them if you'd rather just play.

Chapter 13×3

The Draw

Pairs, flushes and high card.

Chapter 23×3

The Table

Straights, trips and the straight flush.

Chapter 34×4

The Floor

A fourth column, and two pair.

Chapter 44×4

The Room

Quads, and fewer cards to start.

Chapter 55×5

The Cage

The full ranking, full house included.

Chapter 65×5

The Vault

Expert boards, start to finish.

At the table

Built to be played well.

Hints

Help starts with what's wrong.

Ask for a hint and the game checks your board first. A card that can't work gets pointed out before anything new is suggested, and being told about a mistake never costs you a star.

Stars

Three stars, three standards.

One for solving, two for solving without a hint, three for doing that under par. Par comes from the length of the actual solve, not a guess.

Notes

Pencil in the maybes.

Switch to Notes to mark the cards a cell might hold, and rub them out as the board narrows.

Accessibility

Suits you can tell apart.

An optional four-color deck gives every suit its own hue, and the suit symbols always differ by shape as well as color.

iCloud

Your progress follows you.

Levels, stars and best times sync through your own iCloud to every device signed in to the same Apple Account.

Everywhere

iPhone, iPad and Mac.

Portrait on iPhone. On a wide iPad or Mac window, the tray moves beside the board so it keeps every bit of the space.

Dealer's Lattice app icon

The house has one answer. Find it.

Dealer's Lattice is in development.

Coming to iPhoneiPadMac