You and two opponents trade paintings across four rounds. Everyone starts with $100M. The largest final cash balance wins.
Offer one painting when it is your turn. When the fifth painting by any artist appears, the round ends immediately and that closing lot is not sold. Rank artists by paintings offered; ties favor the leftmost artist. The top three earn 30, 20 and 10 this round. Add their awards from earlier rounds to get each painting’s payout. Artists outside the top three pay zero, even if they scored earlier.
Payment goes to the seller. If the seller buys, payment goes to the bank. You keep unsold cards between rounds; new cards arrive before rounds two and three.
Default: 5 seconds to choose a painting, pair, quote or sealed bid; 3 seconds to buy, raise or pass. Open auctions have a 22-second limit on your active decision windows. Expiry offers your first sorted card, submits a zero sealed bid, quotes zero, or passes. Pause freezes both bots and the clock. Reviews have no timer.
EV means expected value: a probability-weighted average payout. After each round, the cash summary separates income from selling to the bots, purchase spending, collection payouts and your net result. The decision review labels choices as a model agreement, a near tie, or a stronger preference for an alternative. These are estimates under simulated play, not dollars certainly lost or guaranteed profit.
The bots see their own hand and public events. They sample possible hidden hands, simulate the current and next rounds, condition hidden-hand samples on public bids, and spend extra search on close decisions. They remember public bidding patterns between games. Optiver favors liquidity and inventory control; Jane Street puts more weight on downside uncertainty and adaptation. The names are fictional opponent labels, with no affiliation to either firm.
1–9, 0 offer the first ten grouped card choices · B focus bid · Enter submit · Space pass · P pause. Card clicks submit immediately.
Based on the supplied Modern Art PH rules. Original geometric card art. The inherited 70-card deck uses the conventional auction-symbol distribution; exact PH symbol counts were not specified in the rulebook.