Sevens (a.k.a. Fan Tan) Rules

Overview

Sevens (排七, also known as Fan Tan or Domino) is a four-player card game played with a standard 52-card deck. Every suit is built outward from its 7, down to the A and up to the K. On your turn you must play a card if you can; if you cannot, you must cover one card from your hand face down, and covered cards count against you. The aim is to cover as few, and as low, cards as possible while going for the Complete Suit, Clean Hand and Last Seven bonuses.

• Players: Four per table.
• Cards: One standard 52-card deck, no Jokers.
• In a nutshell: Each suit is built from its 7, down to the A and up to the K. On your turn, if you have a card that can be played, you must play it; if you have nothing playable, you must pick one card from your hand to cover (place face down), and covered cards cost you points.
• Goal: Cover as few cards as possible, with values as low as possible, and go for bonuses such as Complete Suit, Clean Hand and Last Seven, to finish first in the hand. The first-place player collects points from every player whose total is negative.
• Hand: From the deal until all four players have used up their hands (played or covered) and the hand is settled.

Cards and Dealing

• The 52 cards are shuffled and dealt out completely, 13 to each player.
• Card values: A = 1, 2–10 = face value, J = 11, Q = 12, K = 13.
• Each of the four suits forms its own independent row; suits do not affect one another, and no suit outranks another.

How to Play

1. Who starts: The player holding the 7 of spades leads, and the first card of the hand must be the 7 of spades. Even if that player holds other 7s, no other suit may be opened first.
2. Direction of play: Turns pass counterclockwise.
3. Building: After the 7 of spades has been played, only two kinds of cards can be played on your turn:
   • Any 7 that has not yet been played (opening a new suit);
   • A card next in sequence in a suit already on the table: one rank below the lowest card of that suit so far (toward the A), or one rank above the highest card so far (toward the K). For example, if hearts 5, 6, 7 and 8 are on the table, only the 4 of hearts and the 9 of hearts can be played.
4. Must play if able: If you hold any playable card, you must play a card (if several are playable, you choose which). You may not decline to play, and you may not cover instead.
5. Covering: If it is your turn and you hold no playable card, you must choose any one card from your hand and place it face down in front of you. A covered card is out of the hand for good; you can never play it later, even if it becomes playable. There is no option to "pass and keep your cards" in this game.
6. Covered cards are hidden: Played cards are visible to everyone. Only you know which cards you covered; the others only see how many. All covered cards are revealed at settlement.
7. Players with no cards left drop out of the rotation: Once a player has disposed of all 13 cards (played or covered), they are skipped; the others continue until all four hands are empty, and only then does the hand end.

Card Combinations and Ranking

Sevens has no card combinations and no comparing of card strength; the only thing that matters is whether a card "can be played right now". The one thing to remember is the penalty value of covered cards:

Legal Moves and Fouls

• Only legal actions may be made: a card that cannot be played cannot be played, and you may not cover while you have a playable card.
• When covering, any card in your hand may be covered, with no restriction on suit or rank (there is no rule such as "your first cover cannot be an A or K").
• You cannot play for another player, and you cannot take back a card.

Scoring

Settlement has three steps: first each player's total, then the placings, and finally each player's result (in money) for the hand based on placing and total. This scoring follows the Douque platform's Sevens specification (including its official settlement formula).

Step 1: Total

Total = special bonuses − sum of covered card values

• One play can earn two bonuses: Clean Hand stacks with Last Seven or Complete Suit. A player whose last card is a 7 has never covered a card, so Last Seven always comes with Clean Hand (+20 +10 = +30). If your last card completes a suit and you never covered a card, you get Complete Suit + Clean Hand (+5 +10).
• Last Seven and Complete Suit never happen on the same play: a 7 can only open a suit, so it can never complete A through K.
• Complete Suit can be earned several times in one hand (once per suit), and can be combined with a later Last Seven or Clean Hand.
• All Covered (全蓋): A player who covers all 13 cards without ever playing one does not count any cover penalty (total = special bonuses, which is always 0: without playing a card you cannot earn any bonus) and automatically takes first place.

Step 2: Placings

1. An All Covered player is first.
2. Everyone else is ranked by total, highest to lowest.
3. Tied totals: fewer covered cards ranks higher.
4. Still tied: the smaller "total distance from 7" of covered cards ranks higher. Take the absolute difference between each covered card's value and 7, then add them up. For example, covering a 5 and an 8 gives a distance of 2 + 1 = 3.
5. Still tied, and neither player has covered a card: compare achievements, Last Seven > Clean Hand > Complete Suit > none; Complete Suit counts only whether you have it, not how many times. Players who have covered cards stay tied at this point; achievements are not compared.
6. If everything above is equal, the players share the same place (standard competition ranking, which skips places after a tie, e.g. 1, 1, 3, 4). Seat order only decides the display order on screen and is not used to break ties.

The first-place player is the winner of the hand. When players tie for first, there is more than one winner, and the tied winners split the pot equally (see Step 3).

Step 3: Result (money per hand)

• The winner pays nothing and collects all the money paid by the losers; tied winners split them equally, each with their own winner multiplier (see the notes below).
• Non-winners with a total of 0 or more neither pay nor collect; their score for the hand is 0.
• Non-winners with a negative total pay money to the winner:

Money paid = −total × rank penalty × bust multiplier × winner multiplier × base stake

Biggest Loser and Runner-up Loser are only compared among players with a negative total (players at 0 or above pay nothing, so they are never Biggest or Runner-up Loser; on the settlement screen these two tags only appear next to players who pay). Ties are handled as follows:

Notes:

• Bust is based on the sum of covered card values, not the total. A player who covered 58 points and earned one Complete Suit has a total of −53, and is still bust.
• If the winner has both Last Seven and Clean Hand, the two multipliers are multiplied: ×4 × ×2 = ×8. A player with Last Seven has never covered a card, so a Last Seven winner always gets ×8.
• With tied winners, each loser's payment (before the winner multiplier) is split into equal shares, and each share is multiplied by the winner multiplier of the winner who receives it. In real games tied winners always have the same multiplier, so this works out to an equal split.
• The four players' results always add up to 0.

Worked Example

With a base stake of 1:

• Winner A has Clean Hand, so the winner multiplier is ×2.
• B's total is not negative, so B neither pays nor collects and scores 0.
• C has the second-lowest score among negative players (Runner-up Loser ×2) and is not bust: 20 × 2 × 1 × 2 × 1 = 80 money.
• D has the lowest score among negative players (Biggest Loser ×3) and is bust ×2: 60 × 3 × 2 × 2 × 1 = 720 money.
• A collects 80 + 720 = +800 money; B 0; C −80; D −720.

Special Rules and Rulings

• The hand must open with the 7 of spades: The starting player's first card can only be the 7 of spades.
• Cover any card: We do not use folk restrictions such as "your first cover cannot be an A or K" or "you may not block your own suit".
• You never have to cover while holding a 7: If you still hold the 7 of a suit, that suit has not been opened yet, so that 7 can always be played, and you must play.
• Players with Last Seven or Clean Hand never covered a card, so their total is always positive and they can never be the ones paying.
• Bonuses on one play can stack: Clean Hand counts together with Last Seven or Complete Suit (Last Seven + Clean Hand +30; Complete Suit + Clean Hand +15). Last Seven and Complete Suit never happen on the same play.
• Achievements are compared only when neither player has covered a card: players who have covered cards and are equal on total, number of covered cards and distance from 7 share the place.
• All Covered takes first place: Covering all 13 cards counts no penalty and beats every other player (including those with a positive total), with a winner multiplier of ×4.
• The bust threshold is "more than 55": Exactly 55 is not bust.
• The multiplier base is the total: Money paid is based on the total after "special bonuses − covered card values", not on the covered card values alone.
• Tied winners split the pot: Players with exactly the same placing share it, and the money paid by the losers is divided equally among the tied winners. Each tied winner uses their own winner multiplier.
• When everyone is negative: The first-place player is still the winner even with a negative total, and pays nothing.

Rules source: Douque platform Sevens specification (including the official settlement formula).