Vinto

Vinto is not our game. It was designed and published by other people, and this is an unofficial app for playing it — with no affiliation to them and no endorsement from them. The game itself, its rules and its printed deck are at vinto.game.

Vinto is a card game of memory and nerve for four. You hold five cards face down and may look at exactly two; everything after that you work out from what people draw, what they throw away, and what they suddenly will not part with. Call Vinto when you think your hand is the lowest — right, and it pays; wrong, and it costs.

Most card games hand you a hand. Vinto hands you five face-down cards and lets you see two, so from the first turn you are playing a position you only partly know — and so is everybody else. What you learn after that, you learn from them: what somebody drew, what they discarded, and what they would not give up.

Every card does something. Seven and eight look at one of your own; nine and ten look at somebody else’s; the Jack swaps two blind; the Queen peeks at two and then decides; the King makes the whole table throw in a rank. Knowing when NOT to spend one is most of the skill.

It plays alone and it plays with people, and neither is the afterthought: three opponents that search the game out rather than follow a script, or a room whose entire invitation is six characters — no account, no sign-up, no friend list. Free in the browser with nothing to install; iPhone and Android are in preparation.