The pub card game
Last one holding cards buys the round.
Holland Pub is the classic shedding game, played over a pint. Beat the pile or pick it up — against five house regulars, or a friend in the other chair.
Free to play. No chips, no money — you're playing for your rating, and who buys the next round.
The game
How a round plays
The deal
Nine cards each: three face-down on the table, three face-up on top of those, three in hand. Swap hand and face-up cards until you like your setup.
Beat the pile
Play equal or higher onto the pool — duplicates can go down together. Nothing legal to play? The whole pool goes into your hand.
Shed everything
Empty your hand, then your face-up cards, then the face-down ones — blind. First player out wins; the last one holding cards buys the round.
3 down · 3 up
3 in hand
The troublemakers
Four cards run the table
The Wall
Only a 3–7 answers it. No eights, no tens, no twos — the pool just grows.
The Mirror
Transparent — the next player still has to beat whatever sits beneath it.
The Burn
Torches the whole pool out of the game for good. Then you play again.
The Reset
Lands on anything and the pool starts fresh — any card can follow.
…and none of them can touch a nine.
Opponents
Who's across the table?
Five regulars, one ladder
The house keeps five of them on stools, from a gentle first hand to a proper beating. Only the bottom rung is open when you walk in — beat a regular once and the next one's chair is yours, for good. Nobody sits down opposite the Landlord on their first night.
Crazy LarryPlays like a man possessed. Expect the unexpected — Larry certainly doesn’t.
Hugh JackA very mild fella who’ll teach you the ropes — and the virtue of patience.
Michael DoglessThe mean one. You’ll wish you’d ordered something stronger before sitting down.
VickySweet smile, ice-cold memory. She counts every card you pick up.
The LandlordHe owns the room. He doesn’t remember your cards — he counts them.Or bring a friend
Heads-up against a real player. Sit down at an empty table and the cards fly the moment someone takes the other chair — or grab the open seat at somebody else's table. Games live at the pub, not on your phone: walk away mid-hand and pick it back up whenever.
Take a seat
The score
Winning is only half of it
Coins are counted in cards. Every pile you burn, every pile they're forced to swallow and every card left in their hand when you walk out — all of it banks, all game long.
2coins
per card burned
Torch the pool
A ten takes the whole pile out of the game — and pays two coins for every card it takes with it.
4coins
per card burned
Four of a kind
Land the fourth card of a rank on top and the pool burns anyway. Double rate, for double the nerve.
1coin
per card picked up
Bury them
Leave a pile nobody can answer and every card they’re forced to scoop is a coin in your pocket.
1coin
per card left over
Go out first
Shed everything and you bank a coin for each card still stuck in the other hand.
A grim little hand might be worth six. A blowout runs into the thirties — and that number is the stake.
Standing
Every game moves your rating
You start at 1000 and carry two ratings — one for games against people, one for games against the house — because beating a regular and beating a person measure different things.
What you win or lose is the game's own score, weighed against who was sitting opposite. Grinding the easiest regular pays almost nothing; taking one off someone far above you pays nearly the whole hand. The regulars are rated too — one rating each, shared by the whole pub — so they stand on the board right alongside you.
Vs players
Rating earned across the table from other people.
Vs the regulars
Rating against the house — with the regulars ranked among you.
Wealth
The coins in your hand right now, ranked across the whole pub.
Three boards on the wall, top ten each. Ratings fall as well as climb; lifetime coins only ever go up.
Quests
Beat a regular, take their card back
There's a quest on the board for each of the five, and each one holds a card back nobody else in the pub is wearing until they've earned it. Win once, claim the reward, and every face-down card you play from then on carries it — including the ones your opponent is staring at across the table.
Crazy Larry
Hugh Jack
Michael Dogless
Vicky
The Landlord
Four backs are yours from the start — pick one the moment you sign up, along with a face to sit behind. The other five you play for.
Take it with you
The pub fits in your pocket
Holland Pub installs straight from this page — no store, no download, nothing to sideload. Add it to your home screen and it opens as its own app, with the same account and the same games waiting in it.
- Its own window — full screen, no address bar, no tab strip.
- A spade on your home screen, one tap from the table.
- Opens instantly next time, and keeps itself up to date.
Prefer it from a store? The same pub ships on iOS and Android too.
Holland Pub
Free · web, iOS & Android
No button? Open your browser menu and pick Install app or Add to Home Screen.
Pull up a chair.
A free account gets you dealt in under a minute — in the browser, on iOS, or on Android.