Card Race

Five randomly selected sports cards are your field. You pick Win (first place), Place (second), and Show (third) before the race starts. The race runs across 12 furlongs — each furlong, every card takes a step whose size is determined by a deterministic hash of the card's attributes (player, year, sport, value) combined with the furlong number and the daily seed. This means the race outcome is fully determined by the cards in the field and the seed — not random — which is why Daily mode is comparable across players.

Correct Win pick: 10 points. Correct Place pick (2nd place): 5 points. Correct Show pick (3rd place): 3 points. Maximum single-race score without the bonus: 18. Trifecta bonus (all three correct in exact order): +50. Perfect race scores 68. Score to letter grade: 60+ is A (rare — basically only trifecta hits), 40-59 is B (two picks correct), 20-39 is C (one pick correct), 10-19 is D (partial credit), below 10 is F.

No — it's deterministic, which is a feature not a bug. Card Race uses FNV-1a hashing of (card slug + furlong number + daily seed) to produce each step. This means two players on the same day see the same 5 cards and the same race outcome. Your picks are the only variable. Daily mode is comparable across the community; free-play mode uses fresh randomness each race for practice or curiosity.

No. Card attributes determine step sizes through hashing, not value. Value influences which cards appear in the field (lower-value cards are filtered out to keep the field interesting) but does NOT bias step sizes. A $50 rookie card has identical step-distribution potential to a $5,000 vintage card — the hash is what it is. This keeps the game feel fair: a well-liked common can beat a favorite grail in the same race.

Absolutely. Free-play mode lets you run as many races as you want with no stats tracking. Or play Daily and just watch the race — the visual pace (300ms per furlong, 12 furlongs = ~3.6 seconds total) is the pleasure, regardless of whether you picked correctly. For serious stats tracking, Daily mode logs races + wins + trifecta hits + best race in localStorage for personal history.

Five is the canonical horse-race field size — it produces 5! = 120 possible Win/Place/Show permutations, large enough for 60 valid picks (Win × Place × Show excluding repeats) to be meaningfully varied. Twelve furlongs gives enough steps that small step-size differences compound into visible lead changes — races with only 3-4 furlongs feel abrupt and arbitrary; 20+ furlongs feel sluggish without adding drama. Twelve is the sweet spot for ~3-second races that hold attention to the finish.

Click "Share result" after the race. The share format is a compact 3-line summary: "Card Race [date] · [score] / 68 · [grade letter]" plus an emoji-finish-order ribbon (🥇🥈🥉 next to your picks, showing green emoji if you picked correctly, red if not). Works great on X, Discord, Bluesky. Matches Wordle-style daily share patterns so friends know what they're looking at without needing context.