I’ve been working on my online version of the shengji card game for a little while now. One of the more interesting aspects of the game is how a legal play is defined, and the corresponding algorithm to compute that. Problem overview Shengji is a trick-taking game, which means that in each round, every player plays the same number of cards. The first player in the trick sets the “format” of the trick, which subsequent players must attempt to follow.

An investigation into relative likelihood of various situations in the card game shengji.

Introduction This COVID-19 pandemic has left me with lots of free time spent in front of a computer at home. I’d been spending time with my friends playing various videogames online (the Jackbox Party Pack games work reasonably well over Discord or Zoom), and my fiancée suggested that we try to play tractor online… but I couldn’t find one that was easily available over the internet! What’s tractor, anyways? Tractor is a trick-taking card game popular in China, played with four or more players and with multiple decks.