How to Play Guessroo 1 vs 1 Live: Rules, Scoring and a Sample Match

1 vs 1 live at a glance

1 vs 1 live is a head-to-head mode of Guessroo's five daily guessing games. Instead of everyone in the world playing the same puzzle, you and one friend get your own room with fresh questions, and you see each other's points after every answer. It works like a two-player online trivia game, except that you never need to know the exact answer: a close guess scores well.

What you need

• Two devices with a web browser. Any phone, tablet, laptop or desktop works: iPhone, Android, iPad, Chromebook, Mac or Windows. You can mix them, so one player on a phone and the other on a laptop is fine.
• A way to send a link. Text message, WhatsApp, Messenger, Discord, Slack, Teams or email. If you are in the same room, you can read the link out loud.
• An internet connection. The game checks the room every couple of seconds, so Wi-Fi or mobile data both work.

Nobody needs an account. Each player gets a random animal name, such as Steady Wallaby 55 or Quiet Cockatoo 13, so you never type a name or share an email address.

How to start a 1 vs 1 match, step by step

The screenshots below come from a real match on two phones in Sizeroo, the size guessing game. Steady Wallaby 55 opened the room and Quiet Cockatoo 13 joined it. Your questions will be different, because every room gets its own.

Step 1: Open the menu and choose 1 vs 1 live

On guessroo.com or in any game, tap the menu button (☰) at the top right. Tap 1 vs 1 live, then the game you want to play: Sizeroo, Farroo, Weighroo, Speedroo or Yearroo. The home page also has a 1 vs 1 live box with the same buttons.

Step 2: Send the link to your friend

The game opens a room for the two of you and shows its link, in the form guessroo.com/d/ plus a six-character code. Tap Send the link to open your phone's share sheet, or Copy to paste it anywhere. When you paste it into a chat app, it shows a preview that says you invite them to a live 1 vs 1.

Step 3: Your friend opens the link, and the match starts

As soon as your friend opens the link, both screens switch to the first question. A bar at the top shows the match number, both scores and what the other player is doing, for example "Steady Wallaby 55 is thinking about question 1…". There is nothing to set up and no countdown: just start guessing.

Step 4: Slide to your guess and lock it in

Each question works exactly like the daily game. Slide along the scale to your guess (use the ÷2, −, + and ×2 buttons to fine-tune it), then tap Lock it in. You see the real answer straight away, drawn to scale, with your points and a short fact.

Nobody can race ahead. If you lock in first, the next button waits and says "Waiting for [your friend]…" until they lock in too, so you always play the same question at the same time. If your friend has done nothing for about 90 seconds, the game decides they are away and lets you carry on.

Step 5: See who won the match

After the fifth question, both players see the result side by side: each question's points, the totals and each player's time over the 5 questions. Below it, Your series keeps count of matches won and total points across every match you play in this room.

Step 6: Start the next match, or switch game

Either player can tap Next match: 5 new questions, or pick another game under Or switch game. The other player is moved to the new match automatically, so nobody has to send a new link. The room keeps the series going for as long as you both keep playing.

Step 7: Share the score

Tap 📣 Share the score to post a one-line summary, such as "I beat Quiet Cockatoo 13 396–395 in a Sizeroo live 1 vs 1 on Guessroo". From the second match on, it shares the series instead, for example "I'm beating Steady Wallaby 55 2–1 in our live 1 vs 1". A match won on a tie-break says so: "I beat them on time".

The official rules

1. Two players per room. The player who opens the room and the first person to open its link. Anyone else who opens the link is told the room already has two players.
2. Five questions per match. Both players get the same 5 questions in the same order, picked at random for your room from the game's 600 questions.
3. One question at a time. You cannot move on to the next question until the other player has locked in the current one, unless they have been inactive for about 90 seconds.
4. Up to 100 points per question. The closer your guess, the more points; see the scoring table below. A perfect match is 500.
5. Your time counts only for ties. A clock runs from the moment a question appears until you lock in, capped at 10 minutes per question. Time never adds or removes points.
6. The higher total wins. If both totals are equal, the player with the faster total time over the 5 questions wins the match ("wins on time"). If the times are equal to the second as well, the match is a tie.
7. Series. The room adds up matches won and total points for each player across all your matches.
8. Next match. Either player can start the next match once both have finished, in the same game or another. If the other player has been away for about 90 seconds, you can start it anyway.
9. Friendly play. 1 vs 1 matches do not count toward your streak, your statistics or the daily leaderboard, so play as many as you like.
10. Rooms last a week. A room stays open for 7 days after the last move, so you can pick up a series tomorrow with the same link.

How points work in each game

Every Guessroo game scores how close you are, not whether you are exactly right. For sizes, weights and speeds, what matters is how many times too big or too small your guess is. So guessing 2 feet for something 1 foot long is as far off as guessing 2 miles for something 1 mile long.

Twice too big or too small scores about 70 in Sizeroo, Weighroo and Speedroo. In Yearroo, each year beyond the first costs 2 points. The same scoring is used in the daily games, so practicing on the daily puzzles makes you better at 1 vs 1 too.

A sample match, question by question

Here is the full match from the screenshots, played in Sizeroo. Guesses are rounded; the points are exactly what the game gave.

Quiet Cockatoo 13 nailed the AAA battery and came closer on Mars, but missed the triathlon by more than half. Steady Wallaby 55 had one weak answer (the battery, about 3 times too small) and won by a single point. That is typical: one big miss usually costs more than a few small ones, because a guess 3 times off loses about half the points.

Match 2: level on points, decided on time

In the next match the two players finished on exactly the same score, 384 each. Under the tie-break rule, the faster player wins. Quiet Cockatoo 13 locked in every answer quickly and finished in 0:16, against 0:36, so they won the match on time and levelled the series at one match each.

Notice that the series table ranks players by points, so Steady Wallaby 55 is listed first with 780 points against 779, even with the wins level. The real decider is up to you: play a best of three, best of five, or first to 2,000 points.

Who 1 vs 1 live is for

Two friends, anywhere

This is the main use: a quick online game to play with a friend on your phones, whether you sit on the same couch or live in different time zones. A match takes a minute or two, so it fits in a coffee break, a bus ride or the wait for a movie to start.

Long-distance friends and couples

Looking for games to play with a long-distance partner or a friend who moved away? Start a call on FaceTime, WhatsApp, Zoom or Discord, send the link, and play while you talk. Arguing about whether an NFL end zone is 10 yards or 30 is half the fun.

Family game night and the holidays

On Thanksgiving, Christmas or New Year's Eve, play it as a family party game: kids against grandparents, or two teams of three, each team huddled around one phone and agreeing on every guess. The numbers spark conversation, and nobody needs to know trivia: a fair guess still scores. Play best of five, switching game each match so everyone gets a favorite.

Coworkers and classrooms

For a quick team icebreaker, pair people up and post the scores in Slack or Teams afterwards. Teachers can use it for estimation practice in pairs: students learn to reason in orders of magnitude, and the answer pages explain every result.

Groups bigger than two

A room holds two players. For three or more people, you have two options:

• A small tournament. With 4 or 8 players, open one room per pair, play a best of three, and send the winners into new rooms until one is left.
• Stream mode. One person opens a room and everyone else joins it, with a live leaderboard. It handles a whole class, a family around the TV or thousands of viewers on a live stream. See how to play Guessroo Stream mode.

Tips to win more 1 vs 1 matches

1. Think in powers of ten first. Is it closer to an inch, a foot, a mile or a thousand miles? Getting the right order of magnitude is worth far more than the last few percent.
2. Use something you know as an anchor. A school bus is about 40 feet long, a football field 100 yards, the US about 2,800 miles across. Scale up or down from there.
3. Avoid the big miss. Being 3 times off costs about half the points. When you are unsure, a middle guess is safer than a bold one.
4. Be quick when you are sure. Time never changes your score, but in a tie the faster player wins. Lock in confident answers fast and save your thinking for the hard ones.
5. Read the facts. Every answer comes with a comparison, and similar questions come back in later matches.

Problems and fixes

1 vs 1 live and the other ways to play