THE SMALL TABLE / 01

Palm & Pebble

Two hands. Five is out. One clever little duel.

How to play & table rules

Each hand begins at 1. Choose one of your live hands, then tap a live opposing hand to add your number to it. A total of 5 or more knocks that hand out: it becomes 0, with no rollover. Knock out both opposing hands to win.

Instead of tapping, choose a redistribution button. It preserves the total on your two hands, keeps each from 0 to 4, and may revive a dead hand. Passing or merely swapping hands is not allowed. Unlike the original UI, redistribution cannot discard points.

Three occurrences of the same position with the same player to move, or 100 turns, is a draw. Casual prefers knockouts; Oracle solves the finite position graph, treating cycles as draws. Hints use Oracle. Keyboard: Tab to a hand or action, then Enter/Space. Undo restores your last turn, including the computer response. Progress saves on this device.

Recent turns