Same cards. Same deal. One winner. Challenge the player above you, play the sealed deal on your own time, and climb for real prizes — no luck, just play.
Every ladder match deals both players the exact same 19 cards, in the exact same order — like duplicate bridge. Nobody wins because they got a better hand. They win because they played it better.
Challenge a player above you on the ladder. You each play your match on your own time at a private table — no need to be online at the same moment. Win, and you take their rung and the pot. Lose, and you keep climbing from where you are.
The ladder is a separate arena from the monthly leaderboard. Ladder matches don't score on the monthly board, and the monthly board's prize is separate from the ladder's.
The server locks in one shuffle the moment a challenge is accepted and publishes its commitment. Neither player sees it until they sit down to play — and neither sees the other's result until both matches are done.
You challenge players ranked above you. Nobody below can be called down, and you can't challenge yourself.
A Tier 3 player can call Tier 3 or Tier 4, not the Apex. Every challenge stays inside the bankroll you were granted for.
While you have a challenge open or a deal in play — as challenger or defender — you can't start another, and nobody can call you.
A player who just won a defence is shielded for 24 hours. Wait it out; you'll see the timer on their rung.
The stake is always the defender's tier value, posted equally by both. There's no call fee and no special maths at the top.
Your bankroll has to cover the stake before you can send the challenge. No credit lines — a balance never goes negative.
Your tier is set by your rank. The top rungs are paid tiers with fixed slot counts; Tier 1 at the bottom is open to anyone who qualifies. The pyramid fills in behind real demand: with a small field, the lowest occupied tier is simply the bottom of the ladder.
| Tier | Ranks | Stake (chips) | Slots | Entry grant (25 buy-ins) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apex | 1 | 50 | 1 | 1,250 |
| Tier 6 | 2 – 4 | 50 | 3 | 1,250 |
| Tier 5 | 5 – 14 | 25 | 10 | 625 |
| Tier 4 | 15 – 44 | 10 | 30 | 250 |
| Tier 3 | 45 – 99 | 5 | 55 | 125 |
| Tier 2 | 100 – 199 | 3 | 100 | 75 |
| Tier 1 | 200+ | 1 | Unlimited | 25 |
The grant is what you receive when you enter, for the rung you land on. Move between tiers later and your chips move with you — nothing is re-granted, nothing is taken.
Every stake, grant and pot on the ladder is in chips. In Season 0 chips are granted credit — never your own money, never another player's real cash. There is no way to buy chips and nothing to withdraw.
Every tier grants the same number of buy-ins, not the same number of chips. That's what real bankroll management actually is, and it makes the risk of running dry identical at every rung. Twenty-five buy-ins is a season's worth of play; a player who busts in week two gives nobody anything to learn from and probably doesn't come back.
Enter at a 5-chip rung, receive 125 chips. Enter at the Apex, receive 1,250. Same depth everywhere.
Run dry and the way back is the weekly stipend or a lower rung — never a balance that goes negative. "I owe the platform 400" is a worse conversation than "I ran out".
Fall under 5 buy-ins for your tier and you drop to the bottom of the tier below. Your remaining chips are suddenly deep at the lower stake; climbing back is the honest version of the thing being modelled.
5 chips land for every player on the ladder each week, no tier scaling. Noise at the top, a lifeline at the bottom — the outside income a real bankroll would have.
The house takes 10% of every pot, in Season 0 too, so the credit season behaves exactly like the cash season it's rehearsing.
Grants, holds, refunds, payouts, stipends — each one is a ledger line against your rung. Support can read it back with you.
Worked example — Player A at rung 30 challenges Player B, who holds a 5-chip rung:
stake held on accept
stake held on challenge
A challenge sits open for a day — enough room across time zones to answer it. Unanswered, it expires and the challenger's stake comes back.
Once accepted, both players play their deal within 12 hours. A table already dealt at the deadline gets 30 minutes' grace to finish.
Win a defence and you're immune to new challenges for a day — no pile-ons. Challenging upward while shielded is still allowed.
Let two challenges die on you — declined or expired — inside seven days and you drop a tier. Accept the ones that come, and the rung is yours to hold.
On a paid tier, go 14 days without completing a match and you drop a tier. A rung has to be defended, not just sat on. Tier 1 never idles out.
Nothing requires you to challenge upward. Sitting on a comfortable rung, accepting what comes and collecting defence winnings is a legitimate strategy, not a loophole.
A one-time payout to whoever holds each of the top 25 rungs when the season ends on November 15, 2026. Real USDC, funded by the house — top-heavy enough that rung 1 is worth defending, flat enough that rung 22 still matters in week six.
| Rungs | Payout per rung |
|---|---|
| 6 – 10 | $15 |
| 11 – 15 | $10 |
| 16 – 20 | $6 |
| 21 – 25 | $5 |
Nobody's real money is at risk until Season 1. Season 0 is the community's reward for months of free play — and the proving ground for every rule on this page. Anything that turns out wrong gets fixed here, in credit, before it costs anyone a dollar.