Patent ID: 8348738

Claim:
A method for playing a card game on a computing device having a display screen ( 90 ), the computing device being programmed to carry out the card game using physical card representations stored in a memory for a first deck of playing cards, the program enabling an actual player to play the card game against at least one virtual player controlled by the computing device, a player remaining in the card game being defined as an active player, the method comprising: a) randomly selecting cards, by the computing device, from the first deck of playing cards to form a second deck of playing cards that contains fewer cards than the first deck of playing cards; b) displaying to the actual player on the display screen ( 90 ) one or more cards randomly dealt face up ( 100 , 110 , 120 ), the one or more randomly dealt cards being community cards usable by all players in forming a card hand; c) displaying to the actual player on the display screen ( 90 ) at least a portion of the second deck of playing cards face up ( 160 ); d) selecting by each active player a desired card of a particular rank and suit from the second deck of cards excluding the randomly dealt cards in step (b), where an active, actual player uses a computer interface to make his/her card selection; e) for each active player, determining if the card selected by that player is the same as a card selected by another player in a current round or the same as a card dealt to another player on a previous round; f) if a first player chose the same card as another player, as determined in step (e), dealing the first player a null card that has no value in forming a card hand, wherein, if the first player is the actual player ( 264 ), the null card ( 270 ) is displayed on the display screen ( 262 ) along with the rank and suit of the corresponding card the actual player selected, wherein, if the first player is a virtual player ( 282 ) and the null card is dealt face up, the null card ( 290 ) is displayed on the display screen ( 262 ) with no display of the rank and suit of the corresponding card selected by the virtual player, so that the actual player does not see the identity of the corresponding card selected by the first player; g) if the first player did not choose the same card as another player, as determined in step (d), dealing the first player the card that the first player selected, wherein, the display screen ( 222 ) displays the order and identity of every card selected by the actual player and the order of every card dealt to every virtual player along with the identity of every card dealt face up; h) repeating steps d-g if there is more than one active player after a round of play, until the same predetermined number of cards have been dealt to each active player; and i) controlling the display screen ( 302 ) to identify the active player with the best hand of cards, according to predetermined rules of play.