Teen Pattiतीन पत्ती

Players and cards

Two to six people play with one 52-card pack and no jokers. Teen Patti is at its best with four to six. Aces are high, and also count low in the run A-2-3.

Everyone starts the game with 1,000 play chips. They are only a way of keeping score: they have no value outside this table and start again from 1,000 every game.

Hand ranking

Each player has three cards. From highest to lowest, the hands are:

• Trail (trial): three cards of the same rank. Three aces are the best hand in the game, three twos the lowest trail.
• Pure sequence (double run): three cards in a row, all of one suit, such as 7-8-9 of hearts.
• Sequence (run): three cards in a row in mixed suits.
• Colour: three cards of one suit that are not in a row.
• Pair (jute): two cards of the same rank.
• High card: anything else.

Runs: A-K-Q is the highest run, A-2-3 is second, then K-Q-J and so on down to 4-3-2. K-A-2 is not a run.

Two hands of the same type compare their highest card, then the next, then the last. Pairs compare the pair first, then the odd card. Suits never break a tie: two equal hands are equal.

The boot and the deal

At the start of every hand, everyone with chips puts the boot in the pot. The dealer gives each player three cards face down, one at a time, starting with the player on the dealer's right.

Play passes to the right (anticlockwise), as at most tables in Nepal. The player on the dealer's right acts first, and the deal moves one seat to the right after every hand.

Blind and seen

You may play blind: your cards stay face down, even to you. The stake starts at the boot, and a blind player's chaal costs the stake.

On your turn you may look at your cards with See cards. You are then seen for the rest of the hand, and your chaal costs twice the stake. Looking does not use up your turn.

Playing blind is cheaper, but you are betting on cards you have not seen.

Chaal, raise and pack

Chaal: pay your price (the stake when blind, twice the stake when seen) and stay in.

Raise: pay twice your chaal. The stake doubles for everyone after you. The stake stops doubling at eight boots: with a boot of 10, a blind chaal is never more than 80 chips and a seen chaal never more than 160.

Pack: give up the hand. The chips you have put in stay in the pot.

If everyone else packs, the last player takes the pot without showing their cards.

Show

When only two players are left, the player whose turn it is may pay their chaal and ask for a show. Both hands are turned over and the better hand takes the pot.

If the two hands are equal, the player who asked for the show loses.

A blind player may ask anyone for a show. A seen player may only ask a player who is also seen; against a blind player, you must chaal or pack.

Side show

With three or more players still in, a seen player may ask for a side show with the player who played just before them, if that player is seen too. Asking costs a seen chaal.

The player asked can accept or decline. If they accept, only the two of them see both hands, and the lower hand packs. If the hands are equal, the player who asked packs. If they decline, the game carries on as if a chaal had been made.

Pot limit and running short

When the pot reaches 100 boots (1,000 chips with a boot of 10), betting stops and everyone still in shows. The best hand takes the pot, and equal best hands share it.

If you cannot afford your chaal, you may go all in with the chips you have left. Everyone still in then shows at once, and equal best hands share.

Going all in, you can win from each player only as many chips as you put in yourself this hand. If your hand is best, the rest of the pot is a side pot, and it goes to the best hand among the others. This also covers a player who could only pay part of the boot.

Winning the game

A game is 20 hands, or 10 or 30 if you choose. A player who runs out of chips sits out the rest of the game. The game ends early when one player holds every chip.

After the last hand, the player with the most chips wins.

Number of hands

Play 10, 20 or 30 hands. Twenty is the standard game.

Boot

The boot can be 5, 10, 20 or 50 chips. A bigger boot makes every hand worth more, and the pot limit and the top stake grow with it.

House rules this table does not use

Some groups play muflis (lowest hand wins), wild cards and jokers, the 2-3-5 hand, a limit on blind rounds, suits breaking ties, or a show at four times the stake. Some tables split the pot when a show finds equal hands; this table follows the common rule that the player who asked for the show loses.