About gambit.poker
gambit.poker is a card and board game club inside Telegram, built around poker, chess, durak and backgammon. You open our bot, tap Play and sit down at a table with free play chips.
On this page
Who we are
We run gambit.poker, a club for people who like card games and board games. It lives inside Telegram as a Mini App, so there is nothing to install: it works on the phone, tablet or computer where you already use Telegram.
The club is built around the games themselves. We want you to know the rules before you sit down, and to find them again at the table whenever you need them.
What we do
We offer free play at tables with other people. The chips you use are play chips and they have no cash value. You choose a game, take a seat and play.
Every game has a Rules button at the table, so a rule is one tap away in the middle of a hand. This website is the longer version of the same idea: plain pages that explain how each game works before you start.
The games
Our flagship games are poker, chess, durak and backgammon. Below is every game with its own rules page; the games page lists them too.
- Texas Hold'em: the best-known poker game, 2-9 players.
- Chess: the classic game for two players.
- Durak: the Russian card game, with throw-in and transferable versions, 2-6 players.
- Backgammon: long and short versions, for two players.
- Five-card draw: a poker game where you swap cards once, 2-6 players.
- Bura: a trick-taking card game played to 31 points, 2-4 players.
- Russian checkers: a two-player board game on an 8x8 board.
- Dominoes: the classic 28-tile game for 2-4 players (no rules page of its own yet).
How we write our pages
Our pages are educational. They explain rules, give short worked examples and list common mistakes, in plain words for readers who may not have English as a first language.
We check the rules we publish against the game itself. The rules data in the app is verified against the game engines that run the tables, so what you read here matches what happens on the screen.
- We do not promise results. Card and dice games contain luck, and no tip removes it.
- Play chips have no cash value.
- The club is for adults only: you must be 18 or older.
- We keep a page about responsible gaming with the limits and breaks you can set.
If you are new, start with the glossary for the terms, or open the guides for step-by-step help.
How to reach us
Support is in Telegram. Write to @gambit_poker with a question, a bug report or a note about a rule that looks wrong on one of our pages.
Many common questions are answered on the FAQ page, so it may be the fastest place to look first.