Gong Zhu

Gong Zhu uses a standard 52-card deck with no jokers. Four players each play for themselves. Every hand the cards are shuffled and dealt out completely, 13 to each player, and nobody passes cards. You sit at the bottom of the table, with the three computer opponents to your right, across from you and to your left. Play moves counter-clockwise: you, then right, then across, then left.

Cards rank from 2 (low) up through 10, J, Q, K and A (high). There are no trumps, so all four suits are equal.

The goal is to finish with the highest total score: dodge the pig and the costly hearts, try to win the goat, and use the transformer and exposed cards to multiply the scores that help you. When the match ends, the highest total wins.

A match is a series of hands. Each hand has 13 tricks. After the last trick, every player scores the cards they collected, and that hand score is added to their running total. As long as nobody has fallen to −1000, a new hand is shuffled and dealt.

Only 16 cards in the deck carry a score. They are called scoring cards:

The 13 hearts add up to −200. The 4, 3 and 2 of hearts are worth nothing on their own, but they still count as scoring cards, which matters for the transformer.

After the deal and before the first lead there is an exposing phase. If you hold the Ace of Hearts, the Queen of Spades, the Jack of Diamonds or the 10 of Clubs, you may expose any of them, as many as you like, or none at all. All four players decide privately, and the exposed cards are revealed at the same moment.

Exposing a card makes it stronger for whoever finally collects it, no matter who exposed it:

• Ace of Hearts exposed: every heart is worth double this hand (the 13 hearts total −400).
• Queen of Spades exposed: the pig is worth −200.
• Jack of Diamonds exposed: the goat is worth +200.
• 10 of Clubs exposed: the transformer multiplies by 4 instead of 2, and taken on its own it scores +100 instead of +50.

An exposed card has one restriction: you may not play it to the first trick of the hand in which its suit is led, unless it is the only card of that suit in your hand. The same applies when you lead: you cannot lead an exposed card to open its suit, unless it is your only card in that suit. Discarding it when you are void in the suit led is always allowed, and once the suit has been led once, the restriction is gone.

In the first hand, the player holding the 2 of spades leads, but they may lead any card; the 2 of spades does not have to be played. From the second hand on, the player who took the pig in the previous hand leads first.

Each trick, every player plays one card, going counter-clockwise:

• If you have a card of the suit led, you must follow suit.
• If you do not, you may discard any card.
• The highest card of the suit led wins the trick, and the winner leads the next one. Cards of other suits can never win, however high they are.

Gong Zhu has no "breaking hearts" rule: hearts can be led at any time, and scoring cards may be played on the first trick. Apart from the exposure restriction, there are no other limits on what you may play.

After 13 tricks, each player scores only the scoring cards they collected:

1. Hearts: add up the values of the hearts you took (doubled if the Ace of Hearts was exposed).
2. All hearts: if one player takes all 13 hearts, the hearts score +200 instead of −200 (+400 if the Ace of Hearts was exposed), and if that player also took the pig, the pig becomes +100 (+200 if exposed).
3. Pig and goat: the pig is −100 and the goat is +100 (each doubled if exposed).
4. Transformer: if you take the 10 of clubs and no other scoring card, you score +50 for the hand (+100 if it was exposed). If you took any other scoring card as well, the total of those cards is multiplied by 2 (by 4 if the 10 of clubs was exposed).

Some examples with nothing exposed:

• Pig, Ace of Hearts and 5 of hearts: −100 − 50 − 10 = −160.
• The 10 of clubs alone: +50.
• The 10 of clubs and the 2 of hearts: the 2 is worth 0, so 0 × 2 = 0.
• The 10 of clubs and the goat: 100 × 2 = +200.
• The 10 of clubs, the goat and the pig: (100 − 100) × 2 = 0.
• All hearts without the pig: +200. All hearts with the pig: +300.
• One player taking all 16 scoring cards: (200 + 100 + 100) × 2 = +800.

With exposed cards: after the Ace of Hearts is exposed, taking the Ace and King of Hearts scores (−50 − 40) × 2 = −180. After the 10 of clubs is exposed, taking it together with the pig scores −100 × 4 = −400.

The four hand scores do not add up to a fixed number; it all depends on who collects which cards.

After each hand is scored, the match ends as soon as someone's total is −1000 or lower and exactly one player has the highest total. Players are ranked from highest to lowest, and the highest total wins. If two or more players share the highest total, another hand is played, and this continues until one player is alone at the top at the end of a hand.

For example, totals of −1010, 120, 120 and −300 mean the top is tied, so play continues. Totals of −1010, 150, 120 and −300 end the match, and the player on 150 wins. If you are alone at the top the result reads "Victory!", otherwise "Defeat", followed by the ranking and totals. Anyone at −1000 or below is marked "Out".

Gong Zhu (拱猪) is a four-player card game that is hugely popular in China and among Chinese communities overseas; the name is often translated as Chase the Pig. Like Hearts, it is a trick-taking game where you follow suit and try to avoid the hearts and the Queen of Spades. But Gong Zhu adds a goat that is worth points, a transformer that doubles scores, exposed cards and a big all-hearts reversal, so scores swing both ways and every trick carries more weight.

The pig is what the game is named after: whoever takes the Queen of Spades loses 100 points in one go. The goat is the card everyone wants, since it cancels out a pig. The transformer is the most interesting card of all. It has no value of its own, yet it doubles everything else its taker collected: take it on top of the goat and you have +200, but take it on top of the pig and −100 becomes −200.

All hearts is the comeback play. With a strong hand, instead of dodging hearts you can take all 13 of them, turning −200 into +200 and even turning the pig into +100. Exposing gives every hand an opening statement: exposing the Queen of Spades tells the table the pig is now worth −200 to whoever takes it, and a player who dares to do that usually expects to get rid of it.

Rules for Gong Zhu vary a lot from place to place. This site plays the common four-player version with no passing, the holder of the 2 of spades leading the first hand, doubling by exposure and +800 for taking all 16 scoring cards. When someone reaches −1000 while the top score is tied, this site plays another hand until one player leads alone.

The game starts as soon as the page opens, with no download and no sign-up. It is fully playable in portrait or landscape on a phone and in a desktop browser. The three computer opponents have three levels, Easy, Normal and Hard, with Normal as the default; a change of difficulty in the menu takes effect from the next hand.

• Exposing: during the exposing phase, the cards you may expose are marked "can expose" together with their effect, such as "Pig ×2". Tap the ones you want and press "Expose" to confirm, or press "Don’t expose". If you hold no exposable card, the phase is skipped with the message "You have no card to expose this hand". All four players' exposed cards are revealed together and stay marked beside each seat until they are played.
• Playable cards at a glance: on your turn, cards you can play look normal, while cards you cannot play are dimmed but still visible.
• Select, then play: tap a playable card to select it, then press "Play"; tapping the same card again also plays it.
• Reasons for illegal plays: if you tap a card you cannot play, the game explains why, for example "You must follow clubs" or that an exposed card cannot be played in the first trick of its suit, and nothing changes on the table.
• Hints: in the exposing phase "Hint" selects the suggested cards to expose; during play it recommends one legal card.
• Open scores: each seat shows its hand score and total. "Show collected cards" lists every player's exposed and collected scoring cards. The pig, the goat and the transformer each get their own marker when they hit the table, and an "All-hearts threat" badge appears when one player has taken every heart played so far.
• Fast-forward: while the computer players are taking their turns, you can press "Fast-forward".
• Hand and match panels: after each hand, a panel breaks down every player's score into hearts, pig, goat, transformer, exposure multipliers and all-hearts or all-16 bonuses, with the hand score and total; press "Next hand" to continue. When the match ends, press "Play again" to start a new one.
• Autosave: after a page refresh, rotating your phone or entering and leaving full screen, you continue exactly where you left off, including in the exposing phase.

There is no undo. A card that has been played is information the other players have already used, so every play stands. When you are unsure, try the hint first.

Guard the pig. If you hold the Queen of Spades with four or five low spades, you can keep following low whenever spades are led, and get rid of the pig when someone plays the King or Ace of Spades or runs out of spades. With few spades, the pig is easy to catch, so try to empty another suit early and discard the pig when that suit is led.

Win the goat with high diamonds. The goat goes to whoever plays the highest diamond on its trick. With the Ace or King of Diamonds you can overtake it once someone plays the goat; without high diamonds, do not force the goat out only to hand it to someone else.

Watch where the transformer lands. A player who has already taken negative points dreads the 10 of clubs, while a player holding the goat is happy to take it. On a clubs trick, think about what the likely winner already has before deciding to play high or low. Taking the 10 of clubs alone is a tidy +50.

Shed high hearts early. The Ace, King, Queen and Jack of Hearts cost 20 to 50 points each, so discard them first when you are void in the suit led, or play them on a heart trick where a higher heart has already appeared. The 2, 3 and 4 of hearts cost nothing on their own, but they let the transformer double your other scoring cards, so they are not entirely harmless.

Expose only with confidence. Exposure doubles the score for whoever collects the card: expose the pig and end up taking it yourself, and it costs you 200. Expose it only when your spades are long enough to get rid of it safely, or expose the goat when your high diamonds make you confident of winning it. What others expose also tells you which cards will be held back on the first round of their suits.

Stop all hearts. If one player has taken every heart played so far, they may be going for all hearts. Taking a single low heart yourself is far cheaper than letting that player turn −200 into +200.