v0.50.0 22 October 2026

Poker in the Gilded Ossuary

• The Sanctuary & its games

The Boneyard Game

• Where: a no limit Texas hold'em table at the back of the casino, past the blackjack table.
• The table: an oval of dark green baize with a padded leather rail, a gilt betting line, two brass-ringed pedestals, six chairs, and a skeleton dealer in an eyeshade with his chip tray, under its own chandelier and rug.
• Who you play: other players in your party, or skeletons, or both. "Ask a skeleton to sit in" fills the next empty chair, and "Send one off" sends one away. They play house money and get up when no living player is left at the table.
• The skeletons: six of them, each with a nature and a hat or tie of their own:
  • Gravel Pete, steady;
  • Lady Ossia, tight and aggressive;
  • Dice Mortimer, loose and bluffs;
  • Hollow Jack, passive;
  • Widow Marrow, the strongest;
  • Count Femur, balanced.
• How the skeletons decide: each works out its chances by imagining random deals of the cards still to come (a few each frame, so the host never stutters). It weighs that against the price of calling and its own nature, then folds, checks, calls, bets or raises, bluffing now and then. You see them tap the table to check, push chips forward to bet, and wave their cards away to fold.
• The game:
  • Blinds 5 / 10.
  • Two cards each, then the flop, turn and river, each with a round of betting (25 seconds a move; if you run out of time it checks if it can, otherwise folds).
  • At the showdown, side pots are worked out properly when someone is all in, and split pots go out evenly.
  • When nobody left can bet (all in), the rest of the board is dealt out slowly.
• Hidden cards stay hidden: your two cards are sent to you alone, and nobody else's machine has them until the showdown turns them over.
• The panel:
  • your hand and what it makes (for example "Two pair, Jacks and Sevens", or "Ace king, suited" before the flop);
  • your chips, the pot and the price to call;
  • Fold, Check or Call, and Bet or Raise with a slider plus Min, ½ Pot, Pot and All in;
  • the buy-in buttons and the skeleton buttons.
• At the table: name plates show each player's chips and last move (and what they won and with which hand), plus the dealer button, the pot, and a ring at whoever's turn it is. The seated view looks straight down the table from over your own head.
• Network protocol: now 17.
• New test: (25 checks). It covers hand ranking (the wheel, two sets, kickers, split boards), the skeletons' sense of their chances, side pots, and whole hands against skeletons with gold going in and coming back out.
• Net test: now plays a hand of poker between host and client. The client's cards reach only the client, the hand plays through, chips are only ever moved, and getting up pays out.

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