Kemps Card Game

HOW TO PLAY

Kemps: swap, signal, call

Kemps, also called Kent or Cash, is a partnership game about collecting four of a kind while keeping your signal secret. Four, six or eight people play in teams of two. Partners sit opposite each other, with four private cards each and four public cards in the centre.

Choose your tell

Before play, choose Blink, Tap, Cap, Sip or Look. Your partner sees the choice; opponents see only the tells you perform. Any of the other four tells can be a decoy. The text beside a portrait and the Recent tells list describe each gesture, including with reduced motion enabled. Keep Sort on its usual S shortcut; Sip uses I.

Swap at the same time

Tap a loose card in your hand, then a centre card. The two exchange places. You always hold four cards. You can also drag a hand card onto a centre card, or select hand cards with 1–4 and centre cards with 5–8. If someone takes the centre card first, your hand stays unchanged and the table explains what happened.

Collect four cards of the same rank.

Show the example

Signal your partner

With four of a kind, perform your agreed tell. Your partner calls Kemps. Calling on your own four cards does not work: Kemps always checks your partner's hand. You may bluff with tells, but a false signal can cause your own partner to make a wrong call.

Catch another team

Choose an opposing team and press Stop Kemps if you believe either of its players has four of a kind. The call is checked against their actual cards when it arrives. Every call ends the round. Review shows the hands and score; deal the next round to continue.

Refresh the centre

After five seconds without a swap, the four centre cards go to the discards and four fresh cards appear. Options offers ten seconds or unanimous voting only. Press Refresh to vote; every active player must agree. A swap clears the votes. When stock runs out, discards are shuffled back into it. This recycling rule is a table variant: traditional real-deal Kemps ends an exhausted deal without a penalty.

KEEPING SCORE

Five letters put a team out

A correct Kemps call gives every other active team its next letter in K-E-M-P-S. A correct Stop Kemps call gives just the named team a letter. Either wrong call gives the caller's own team a letter. With three or four teams, eliminated teams watch while the remaining pairs continue. Last team left wins.

For example, if your partner holds four nines and you call Kemps, your team stays on its current letters and every other team takes one. If only you held four nines, your call would be wrong and your own team would take the letter.

Points mode replaces letters with +1 for a correct call and −1 for a wrong call. The first team to reach 5 wins. Calls follow host arrival order, including conflicting calls on different teams. There is no claim collection window or client-time compensation for Kemps.

READ THE TABLE

Keep the rank, disguise the tell

Hold onto a pair while exchanging loose cards. Watch what appears in the centre and what other players take. If a rank stops improving across centre refreshes, changing target can break a stalemate.

Use decoys before your hand is ready so one gesture does not identify your signal immediately. Watch your partner rather than staring only at the centre. Opponents who stop swapping and then perform a familiar tell may be worth a Stop Kemps call, but a wrong guess penalises your team.

Computer skill

Easy keeps one target rank, swaps more slowly and sometimes gives a false signal. Standard changes target when the centre offers better cards and learns a suspected opposing signal after two revealed examples. Expert reacts faster, considers discarded ranks and can learn after one reveal. Every level sees its own hand, its own team's signal and public events only. Timing bands are modelled difficulty settings; they have not been calibrated to human players.

The fixed-signal option lets opponents learn over multiple rounds. New each round resets that evidence. In practice, Hint suggests a public-view move; Undo explains why simultaneous swaps and tells cannot be taken back.