Guide: play with friends - codes, invites, rooms and your own tournament
Derby Duel · September 29, 2026
In Derby Duel you do not have to wait for the system to find you an opponent. There are four ways to go head to head with someone you know, and this guide walks through them in order.
It all starts with the friend code. Every account has a six-digit code shown on the friends page. There is no search by name in the game; that is deliberate, because name search would let anyone crawl the player list from outside. You either tell someone your code or share the link that carries it. Whoever opens the link lands in the game and can add you. Once both sides have added each other, you are friends.
If your friend is online, you can send a match invite directly. The invite appears on their screen wherever they are and stays open for thirty seconds. If they accept, you both enter the same match, refereed by the same server as ranked matches. If your friend's app is closed, the invite reaches them as a notification.
Matches played through a friend invite do not change your rating. The reason is simple: two accounts must not be able to farm rating by playing each other. Instead, a head-to-head record is kept with every friend, so it is still clear who is ahead.
If you want to play with more people, open a room. A room has a code and a shareable link; drop the link in your group chat and whoever comes takes a seat. From your own screen you can follow whether the people you invited have seen the invite and whether they have joined. Room matches do not touch your rating either.
The biggest option is setting up your own tournament. You choose one of three formats: knockout (a cup bracket where the loser is out), league (entrants pair up freely) or groups (groups of four, then knockout). Share the tournament code and your friends join with it. Tournament matches do not change your rating; the tournament has its own table and its own champion.
Every tournament match has a clock. If your opponent is at the table and you do not press play, you are knocked out within twenty seconds; a match left waiting is closed by forfeit when its time runs out, and the tournament moves on. One missing player cannot stall the whole event.
Whichever way you choose, both sides see the same board and the same clock, and the server decides the result.