Does this guide cover the other three mini-games?

No. Archery Master, Gold Miner and Save the Animals are shorter and more self-explanatory; the strategy above is for De-stress Poker, which is the one with a board you can lock yourself out of.

How many cards does a set need?

Nine. The banner across the top of the board reads "Synthesize Cards:9", and a column lights up once it holds nine of the same card.

Are the locked columns worth waiting for?

They open on their own at five, six and eight synthesises -- there is nothing to buy. They simply mean the game gets easier as you go rather than harder.

Abnormal Brain Hole Walkthrough & Level Guide

Overview

Most of what is written about Abnormal Brain Hole online describes a trick-question riddle game, which is not what the build hosted here is. Opening it gives you a hub of four mini-games, and the one worth a guide is De-stress Poker -- a card-merge puzzle where the only losing condition is running the board out of legal moves. This walkthrough covers how that board tightens and loosens as you play.

How Abnormal Brain Hole levels work

A hub of four mini-games; De-stress Poker is a sequence of single-board card-merge levels (Four mini-games, each with its own level list).

Stage-by-stage strategy

Getting the game to appear

The build renders a black frame until it receives a click. Click once anywhere on the game area and the hub noticeboard appears, with an energy counter at the top and four mini-games listed down the board: Archery Master, De-stress Poker, Gold Miner and Save the Animals. Each opens its own level list.

Early boards -- five columns and nothing to spare

De-stress Poker starts with only the five card columns and the two Temporary slot panels, and those two sit behind a rewarded video. The banner reads "Synthesize Cards:9", so every completed set needs nine matching cards, which is a lot of column depth. The habit to build now is keeping one column shallow at all times: it is the only place a badly matched card can go without burying something you still need.

Unlocking the extra slots

Three of the top panels are padlocked and captioned Synthesis5 Unlock, Synthesis6 Unlock and Synthesis8 Unlock -- they open after that many successful synthesises. That means the board you learn on is deliberately tighter than the board you finish on, and early difficulty is not a sign you are playing it wrong.

Spending the joker

The tutorial introduces the joker as a trump card that "can replace any card to synthesize". Because a set is nine cards, a joker dropped onto a stack of three saves you almost nothing, while one dropped onto a stack of eight closes it immediately. Hold it until a column is one card short.

When the board jams

Shuffle reorders what is in play, and Deal cards brings in a new row -- but a new row needs somewhere to land, so dealing into a full board is how a level ends. If every column is deep and mismatched, shuffle first and only deal once you can see where the next row goes.

Tips to beat Abnormal Brain Hole faster

Keep one column shallow. Every dealt card has to land somewhere, and five deep mismatched stacks is a board with no legal move left in it.
Save the joker for a set that is nearly complete. It is worth far more finishing a stack of eight than padding one of three.
Treat the two temporary slots as an escape hatch, not workspace -- they sit behind a rewarded video, so they are not a resource you can lean on every deal.
Expect the opening board to be the tightest one. Three of the columns stay padlocked until you have synthesised five, six and eight times.
If the title drew you in expecting a brain-teaser, start with Gold Miner or Save the Animals from the hub -- the card game is the longest of the four but it is not a riddle game.