A round
It is Hold'em with the betting taken out
Everybody gets two cards of their own and the table shares five. What is missing is the wagering, and what has replaced it is the only question that actually matters: who has what.
Chips numbered one to however many of you there are go on the table, and you take the one you think matches your place in the pecking order — one for the weakest hand, up to the strongest. Change your mind as often as you like. The hand ends only when everybody is happy at once.
You may talk. You may not say what you have
That single restriction is the entire game. Everything is in how somebody reaches for a chip and puts it back, in who moves the moment the flop lands, and in what the turn does to a face on a video call.
Your two cards never reach anybody else's browser until the showdown turns every hand over at once — the same rule Minesweeper's board runs on, held down by the same test.
Three hands
Get the whole order right and the table takes the hand. Three of them makes a game, and a table that is reading each other by the third is the thing you came for.
On the sheet
Questions people ask
Do I need to know poker to play Safe Hands?
You need to know which hand beats which, and the interface tells you what you are holding in words. Nothing else about poker is in here — there is no betting, no bluffing for money and nobody to beat.
Is anybody playing against anybody?
No. Everyone at the table wins the hand or nobody does, which is why this is the one on the shelf we would put in front of a team that has just been reorganised.
Does anybody have to install anything to play Safe Hands?
No. It runs in the browser everyone already has open. One person opens a room, reads out the six-character code or pastes the link into the channel, and everyone else is at the table in a couple of seconds.
Do we need accounts?
No. There is no sign-up, no password and no email address anywhere in the flow. You pick a name when you sit down, and that is the whole of it.
How many people can play Safe Hands?
3 to 6 — best with four. A room seats up to 12.
How long does a game of Safe Hands take?
About 20 minutes, which is the length of a coffee break rather than the length of a games night. Nobody is the host in the sense of holding the controls, so a round finishes whether or not everyone is still looking at it.
Does it work over a video call?
That is what it is for. The game is on the screen and the talking is on the call — nobody has to describe a board to anybody, and the parts that must stay private stay on the server rather than being read out.