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Group Market Making Game – Market of Cards

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Market Making Game ~10 min Guided tutorial
Focus mode hides the sidebar so you can concentrate on the test. Turn it off here — or with the panel icon at the top right — whenever you like.
Play Now Access includes a guided tutorial for your first game
Overview
Market of Cards is the classic group market making game, actually played at some trading firms on their final-round super day, where candidates make markets against each other at the office. In this single-player version you trade against adaptive AI bots. Every card in play, your two private cards, each bot's two private cards and the shared centre cards, adds up to a hidden true value. You and the bots take turns posting a bid and ask that the rest of the table trades against, a centre card is revealed after every round of quotes, and when the last card flips your trades settle against the true total. Your only private information is your own hand, so the game is about estimating the true value better and faster than the bots.
Example: your turn to quote
You see your own two cards and the centre cards revealed so far. Everything still face down you have to estimate. On your turn you post a two-sided market on the total value of every card on the table, and the other traders decide whether to hit your bid or lift your offer. When they quote, you get the same choice.
Cards are worth ten times their rank, with red picture cards positive and black ones negative.
Game Phases
1
Value your hand Number cards 2 to 10 are worth their value times 10 in any suit. Face cards depend on colour: red Jack, Queen and King are +110, +120 and +130 while black ones are negative. The ace follows your setting, always +10 in lowest mode or plus and minus 140 in highest mode. Memorise these, fluent valuation is the whole game.
2
Estimate the true value Add your two cards to the expected value of every card you cannot see: the bots' hands and the unrevealed centre cards. A quick estimate using the average value per card beats a slow exact calculation, because in trading you rarely have time for the precise number and it barely changes your decision.
3
Quote your market On your turn you post a bid you will buy at and an ask you will sell at, with a spread of at most 20. Centre it on your estimate of the true value and skew it to manage your position. Quote too close to your own information and you give it away; quote at the table average and you risk trading in the wrong direction. Taking too long costs a 50 point penalty.
4
Trade, reveal, adapt When a bot quotes, you get first shot: buy at their ask when your value is above it, sell at their bid when it is below, or pass. After everyone has quoted, the next centre card is revealed, so re-estimate before the next round. The AI bots adapt their markets to your quotes and to each other, exactly like opponents in the live group game.
More Practice

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