Gulam Chorगुलाम चोर

Players and cards

Three to eight people play with one 52-card pack and no jokers.

Before the deal one jack is taken out face down and nobody sees it. That leaves three jacks in play: two of them can pair up, but one will always be left over.

The deal

All 51 cards are dealt one at a time, starting with the player on the dealer's right, so some players get one card more than others.

Everybody puts down their pairs face up straight away. A pair is two cards of the same rank, whatever their suits: the 9 of spades pairs with the 9 of diamonds. Four of a kind is two pairs, and three of a kind is a pair with one card left over.

Your turn

The player to the dealer's right goes first, and play passes to the right (anticlockwise).

• The player on your right holds out their cards face down. You pick any one of them.
• If it matches a card you hold, put the pair down.
• If not, it goes into your hand. This table mixes it in at a random place, so nobody can follow where it went.

Then the player you took from has their turn and picks from the player on their right.

Running out and the chor

When your last card is taken, or you pair your last card, you are out and safe. Play simply skips you from then on, and the player before you picks from the next player who still has cards.

In the end every card has paired except one jack. The player holding it is the gulam chor and loses the round. Everyone else wins, in the order they ran out of cards.

How this table plays, and why

Gulam Chor is played a little differently in different homes, so here is what this version uses and where it comes from.

• One jack out unseen, 51 cards dealt, pairs of the same rank put down, and the player left with the jack losing: the WonderHowTo guide to Jack Thief (Gulaam Chor), a published Gulam Chor game by developer Alson, and the Games::JackThief program.
• Picking a face-down card from the player on your right, and players with empty hands leaving the game safe: the Alson Gulam Chor game. Play passing to the right is the usual direction for card games in Nepal, according to Cats at Cards.
• Pairs by rank only: the WonderHowTo guide pairs any two cards of a rank. The French game Vieux garçon pairs only cards of the same colour, but we found no Nepali source for that.
• Hiding a random card instead of a jack, so nobody knows the odd rank, is an option: Online Khabar's guide to Dashain card games describes Julaamchor with a secretly hidden card, sometimes chosen at random.
• Drawn cards mixed in at a random place is our choice, so that nobody can follow a card from hand to hand.
• A random first dealer is also our choice. In testing, the player who picks first ended up the chor noticeably more often, so the first dealer is drawn by lot and the deal moves one place to the right each round.
• Several rounds with a point for each time you are the chor, fewest points winning, is an option for longer games.

Three or five rounds

Play several rounds and keep count of who was the chor. The deal moves one place to the right each round, and the fewest points at the end win.

Any card hidden

Instead of a jack, one card is taken out at random and nobody sees it. Its rank becomes the odd one, and you only find out which it was when the round ends.