RISK LADDER — higher number beats lower. Exception: 1. Cash beats 9. Derivatives.
How it works
- Each session, both sides secretly commit one position card. Higher number wins — but 1 beats 9.
- Only WIN / LOSE / DRAW is revealed. The cards themselves stay hidden until the end.
- Once per game each, declare 2x or 3x leverage (sessions 1–8): the winner of that session takes 2 or 3 P&L instead of 1.
- Once per game each, declare an INVERSE (sessions 1–8): that session the market flips — the lower card wins, and 9 beats 1. If both sides declare it, the two inverses cancel out.
- Draw Pot (optional rule): a drawn session's point doesn't vanish — it rolls into a pot, and the next session's winner takes it all. Consecutive draws stack the pot.
Mr. Market plays a solved equilibrium strategy — trained by counterfactual regret minimisation over billions of self-played hands. It never reads you, and it cannot be read.
| Session | You | AI | Stake | Market | Result |
|---|
Your Track Record
Everyone Else
Ask Earendel
Full Rules
Both sides hold the same nine position cards, 1. Cash through 9. Derivatives, each usable exactly once across nine sessions. The previous session's winner commits first (on a draw, the lead stays). Committed cards are never revealed — after each session you learn only who won. A draw means you both played the same position.
Leverage: each side holds one 2x and one 3x token. When committing a card in sessions 1–8, you may attach a token — this is declared openly, so your opponent sees the raised stakes before responding. The session is then worth the highest attached token (win it, take that much P&L; lose it, your opponent takes it). Tokens attached to a drawn session are returned. Leverage cannot be declared in the final session.
Inverse: each side also holds one Inverse token — a bet on the downside. Declared openly like leverage (sessions 1–8, may be combined with a leverage token). In an inverted session the whole market flips: the lower card wins, and 9 beats 1. If both sides declare an Inverse in the same session, they cancel out and the market trades normally — so a well-timed counter-Inverse can neutralise your opponent's. Inverse tokens on a drawn session are returned.
Draw Pot (optional, on by default): when a session is drawn, its 1 base point rolls into a pot instead of vanishing. The next decided session is worth its own stake plus the entire pot. Consecutive draws keep stacking it. Leverage and inverse tokens are still returned on a draw — only the base point carries. If the final session is drawn, the pot expires.
Why does 1 beat 9? Because when the most leveraged position in the market meets a crash, it gets liquidated — and cash is king. Everything else follows the risk ladder.
Inspired by classic double-blind number duels; rebuilt with a finance theme, open leverage and inverse systems, and an AI that infers your remaining cards from nothing but the win/loss record.
How the AI was built: the card game turned out to have a trivial equilibrium worth nothing, the old bot opened with an 8 or a 9 in 73% of games, three hand-tuned knobs were deleted by measurement, and 148 million MCCFR iterations were compressed into a 350 KB file. English only.
How It Works →