Controls

You play by drawing cards from your opponent's hand. At the start, any pairs already in your hand are discarded automatically. Then, on your turn, tap a face-down card in the opponent's hand to draw it, or click one with a mouse on a laptop.

Each turn follows the same simple flow:

• Drawing a card means picking one unseen card from your opponent's hand. If it pairs with a card you already hold, both are discarded right away.
• Avoiding the queen is the goal. One queen has no partner, so it can never be discarded, and the player left holding it when all other cards are paired loses.

You cannot see which card you're drawing, so every pick is a gamble.

The player stuck with the unmatched queen at the end loses. The computer draws just as blindly from your hand as you do from its, picking at random every turn.

Tips

• Discard pairs as soon as you make them. Getting matched cards out of your hand quickly shrinks it, which means fewer cards for your opponent to draw and less chance you're the one holding the queen.
• Track the odds as hands shrink. Since every draw is random, your risk changes with hand size, so a quick glance at how many cards are left in the hand you're drawing from tells you roughly how likely the queen is to turn up.
• Don't overthink which card to draw. The computer picks from your hand completely at random, and there's no pattern or position to read on its side either, so trust the odds rather than searching for a system that isn't there.
• Remember it comes down to luck. You can't see the cards you draw, so even perfect play can't guarantee dodging the queen, which means a loss is never really your fault.
• Keep your hand size low. The fewer cards you hold, the smaller the chance the queen is among them, so prioritize pairing off and discarding over anything else.
• Enjoy the suspense. The fun of Old Maid is the tension of each blind draw, so lean into the drama rather than treating it as a game to be solved.

Frequently asked questions