Cascade Poker

Drop cards into a 5x5 grid. Any row or column that forms a poker hand clears, the cards above fall, and chains multiply your score. Reach the target to win.

• A card lands on top of the chosen column
• Pairs and better trigger a clear
• Back-to-back clears build a rising chain multiplier

• Desktop: left/right arrows to aim, Space or Enter to drop, number keys 1-5 or click a column header
• Phone & tablet: tap a column to drop into it; keyboard is recommended for fast play

• Daily: a seeded card sequence for everyone
• Practice: a random sequence

• Set up a clear that drops cards into a second waiting hand for a chain
• Watch both rows and columns for overlapping scoring lines
• Don't let every column fill at once or the game ends

An original crossing of two forms that have almost nothing in common. From poker it takes the hand rankings — pairs, straights, flushes and the rest. From the falling-block puzzle descended from Tetris it takes gravity, clearing and chains.

Cards drop into a 5×5 grid, and any row or column that forms a poker hand clears. What is above then falls, which can complete another hand, which clears in turn — the cascade the name refers to.

The interesting consequence is that a poker hand stops being something you are dealt and becomes something you build in two dimensions at once. A card placed for a row is simultaneously sitting in a column, and the best placements are the ones that are doing both jobs.

Further reading: Every Card Plays Two Hands

Cascade Poker blends a column-drop puzzle with poker scoring and cascade combos. It is an original free browser game built in-house for PlayPendium.

A free, original browser game on PlayPendium. No download, no install.

1. Every Card Plays Two Hands

   You drop one card into one column. But the board reads it twice, once along its row, once down its column. That double life is the entire game.