How to drive it

Seven board cards: three in the middle, then two lanes of two that split off it.

The two rules that matter

1. Two and three. Your hand is always both of your hole cards plus exactly three board cards. Not one hole card, not four board cards. The board never plays on its own.

2. Stay in your lane. Those three board cards come from the middle plus one lane — you choose the lane, but you never mix. A Lane A card can't sit beside a Lane B card.

Seven cards face up; five are legal for you; three of those go in your hand. Every player picks their lane independently, so two people at the same table can be reading completely different boards.

Betting rounds

• On-ramp — hole cards, blinds posted.
• The Merge — all three middle cards. Everyone shares them, and everyone already has a hand.
• The Fork — one card to each lane. The road splits.
• The Exit — the last card to each lane, then showdown.

Why it plays differently

• The middle lands first, so the whole table starts from the same hand and the lanes are what pull you apart.
• Both hole cards always play, so a lone ace is worth nothing. Pairs, suited cards and connectors carry the deck.
• Four hearts showing is not a flush unless two of them are in your hand. Scare cards lie more often here.
• A card that terrifies a Lane A player means nothing to someone reading Lane B.

The readout under the table shows your best legal hand, and the lane you're reading lights up on the board.

Convoy — heads up

A second game on the same deck. You and one opponent each build five poker hands and the first to win three takes the stake.

The deal

You each get five cards in hand — that's your fifth hand, sealed until the end — plus four face-up cards, one seeding each of your four lanes. The remaining 34 cards go face down in the pile.

The build

• Take turns drawing one card from the pile. You must place it immediately, in any lane that isn't yet five cards.
• One discard each, all game. Instead of placing a drawn card, you may trade it for one of your five held cards. The old card is gone.
• Sixteen placements plus one discard is seventeen draws each — and the pile holds exactly 34. It empties on the last turn.

The checkpoint

Both players ante the stake before the deal. Once every lane on both sides holds three cards, the build pauses for one round of betting: check, raise, or fold. Raises go up one ante at a time, three raises maximum, then it's call or fold.

This is the only moment either player can get out. Half the board is visible and half is still coming, so the checkpoint is where you decide whether the lanes you're losing are recoverable — and it's the only way to win without finishing the build.

The showdown

Lanes are matched position against position: your Lane 1 beats their Lane 1 or it doesn't, and your held hand meets theirs. Win three of the five and the stake is yours.

Their lanes are face up the whole way, so you always know what you need to beat. The real skill is choosing which lane to give up on — you only need three, so a lane you can't win is the right place to bury a dead card.