About Cardamoo

Cardamoo is real Texas Hold'em — the bluffs, the bad beats, the river cards you'll talk about for a week — with one deliberate difference: it is never, ever about money.

Who makes it

One person. Cardamoo is designed, coded, drawn, tested, and shipped by a solo developer in Malaysia, under the studio name Sanskerje. There's no team behind the curtain — when you file a bug report in the app, the reply that eventually shows up comes from the same person who wrote the code that broke. (And fixed it.)

Being a one-person studio shapes the game more than any feature list. Everything in Cardamoo exists because one player-developer wanted it at their own table: the guided lessons, because teaching a friend poker over a real table is chaos; the AI coach, because "why did I lose that hand?" deserves an actual answer; the hand-drawn card backs and sketchbook themes, because a game you live in should be a pleasant place to sit.

Chips are never for sale — by design

This is the foundation the whole game is built on, so it deserves plain words:

• You cannot buy chips. Not in any amount, at any price, through any door. There is no chip store and there never will be one.
• You cannot send chips to another player. No gifting, no trading, no transfers.
• You cannot cash out. Chips can't be exchanged for money, goods, or anything else of real-world value. They are worth bragging rights, exactly.

These aren't missing features awaiting a business model — they're the point. The moment chips can be bought, every pot quietly becomes a transaction and the game stops being a game. Because Cardamoo's chips are free and stay free, everyone at the table earned their stack the same way: by playing. The poker is real; the stakes never are. There's a longer piece on why this makes the poker better at poker without real money.

So how does it keep running?

Honestly and modestly. Cardamoo has exactly two sources of support, both optional and neither touching chips: a one-time cosmetic Supporter Pack (a profile badge and a gold theme — no gameplay effect), and short opt-in ads you can choose to watch for bonus wheel spins or challenge boosts. Nothing is required, nothing interrupts play, and no purchase or ad ever grants, multiplies, or unlocks chips. Servers cost money; a small fraction of players choosing to chip in (the only kind of chipping-in we allow) keeps the lights on for everyone.

What's actually in the game

• Learn by playing — nine guided lessons at a real table take you from "which card is a Jack?" to your first bluff, and the built-in coach reviews your played hands decision by decision.
• Your table, your friends — private tables with invite links and room codes, home games with your own blinds and buy-ins, and parties that queue into Quick Play together.
• Poker Night — point any spare screen (a TV, a tablet, a laptop) at a QR code and it becomes the shared card table, while everyone's phone becomes their private controller. Game night, minus the deck that's missing a 7.
• Always a game on — Quick Play matchmaking across five stake rooms, Sit-n-Go and Turbo tournaments, daily challenges, and a weekly leaderboard with bonus-chip prizes.
• Make it yours — seven visual themes (three with fully illustrated decks of their own), plus The Barn: card backs, seat frames and win effects to unlock with chips — and rarer ones that can only be earned, never unlocked at any price.

Made in Malaysia, played everywhere

Cardamoo is built in Malaysia and played worldwide — in the browser at play.cardamoo.com, and as free native apps on iOS and Android. Everyone plays at the same tables, whatever the device. The game is for an adult audience, 17 and up.

Say hello

Questions, feedback, bug reports, or just a story about the flush you hit on the river: js@sanskerje.com reaches the developer directly. For anything broken, the in-app bug reporter (in your Profile) is fastest — it attaches the details needed to diagnose, and you'll hear back in the app when it's fixed. More routes on the support page, and the running changelog lives on the news page.