About OhHell.app

OhHell.app is a free, real-time multiplayer version of the classic trick-taking card game Oh Hell, playable in any modern browser. No account, no download, no ads — you enter a name and you're dealt in.

What this site is

The whole site exists to do one thing well: let 3–10 people play a proper game of Oh Hell together, whether they're at the same kitchen table or on different continents. You can jump into a Quick Play game in seconds, or create a private room, pick your house rules, and share a six-character code with friends. There is also an in-person score keeper for when you're playing with a real deck and just want the arithmetic handled.

Fair play, by construction

Online card games live or die on trust, so the parts you can't see are the parts we take most seriously:

• Cryptographically shuffled decks. Every deal is shuffled with a cryptographically secure random number generator — the same class of randomness used for security tokens — not a predictable formula.
• The server enforces the rules. All game state lives on the server, and every bid and card play is validated there. A modified browser can't play out of turn, bid illegally, or break the follow-suit rule.
• You can only see your own cards. Each player's browser is sent only the view that player is entitled to — your hand, the current trick, bids, and scores. Other players' hands never leave the server, so there is nothing to peek at.
• Tested like software, because it is. The rules engine — dealing, bidding constraints, trick resolution, scoring — is covered by hundreds of automated tests that run before every release.

Empty seats in Quick Play are filled by computer players so a game can always start. They play through exactly the same rules engine as humans, with no access to hidden information — they bid and play from their own hands, just like you.

Ratings and the leaderboard

Rated games feed an Elo-style rating, tracked separately for each time control (Bullet, Blitz, Rapid, and Unlimited), and the leaderboard ranks players by it. Ratings are pseudonymous — they attach to a random player ID stored in your browser, not to an email address or real name. Along the way you can also earn achievements for feats like perfect games and made zero bids.

Free, and not "free with a catch"

There are no advertisements, no paid tiers, no loot boxes, and no selling of data. The site collects the minimum needed to run games and keep the leaderboard honest, keeps game records only briefly, and spells all of it out in plain language in the privacy policy.

Who's behind it

Hi — I'm OhHell.app Team, and OhHell.app is my project. It's an independent effort, designed, built, and run by one developer, not a games studio or an ad network. I grew up playing Oh Hell around the kitchen table and built this because I wanted a clean, honest way to play it online with friends who live too far away for a real deck.

The rules engine, the bots, and the interface all keep improving, and player feedback drives a lot of what gets built next. Putting a name and a face to the site is part of the same "fair play by construction" promise as the rest of this page.

Contact

Found a bug, have a rules question, or want a feature? Use the contact form, or email [email protected]. For privacy questions and data requests, see the privacy policy.