What we’ll cover
Setup & the deck
Tichu is a four-player partnership game: you and the player opposite you (your “partner”) play together against the other two. The first partnership to 1,000 points wins.
The deck has 56 cards:
- 52 standard cards in four suits (Jade, Sword, Pagoda, Star) ranked 2 → Ace.
- 4 special cards: the Mahjong (the “1”), the Dog, the Phoenix, and the Dragon.
Dealing & the exchange
Each round starts with the entire deck dealt out — fourteen cards per player. After looking at your hand:
- You may call Grand Tichu (after seeing only your first eight cards) or Tichu (after seeing all fourteen, but before playing your first card).
- You then exchange one card with each of the other three players — one to the opponent on your left, one to your partner, and one to the opponent on your right. All three exchanges happen simultaneously, blind.
- The player holding the Mahjong leads the first trick.
Playing tricks
On your turn you may either play a legal combination that beats the current one, or pass. Once everyone else has passed in turn, the trick is yours; you collect it and lead the next.
The combination on the table dictates what you must play next. If the table is showing a single card, you can only respond with a higher single. If it’s a pair, you must play a higher pair — and so on.
Legal combinations
- Single — any one card.
- Pair — two cards of the same rank.
- Triple — three cards of the same rank.
- Consecutive pairs — two or more pairs in sequence (e.g. 5-5 6-6 7-7).
- Straight — five or more consecutive cards of any suits (e.g. 4-5-6-7-8).
- Full house — a triple plus a pair.
All combinations must be of the same length to compare: a 5-card straight only beats other 5-card straights (with a higher top card), never a 6-card straight or a pair.
Bombs
Bombs break the rules of the trick. There are two kinds:
- Four of a kind — four cards of the same rank.
- Straight flush — five or more consecutive cards of the same suit.
A bomb beats any non-bomb combination, regardless of length. A higher bomb beats a lower one (and a straight-flush bomb beats any four-of-a-kind). You may even play a bomb out of turn — to steal a trick before the player to your left can react.
The four special cards
- Mahjong (the 1) — Whoever holds it leads the first trick. When you play it, you may make a wish: name a rank (2–Ace), and the next player who can legally play that rank must do so.
- The Dog — Worth 0 points. When you lead with the Dog, you immediately pass the lead to your partner. The Dog can only be led, not played onto an existing trick.
- The Phoenix— A wild card. Played as a single, it beats whatever’s on the table by 0.5. Played in a combination, it stands in for any rank you choose. −25 points if it’s in your hand at the end of the round.
- The Dragon — The highest single card in the deck, worth +25 points. If you take a trick with the Dragon, you must give that entire trick to one of the opponents.
Scoring
Each round is worth 100 points, divided based on who took which tricks. Card values:
- Kings & Tens — 10 points each
- Fives — 5 points each
- Dragon — +25 points
- Phoenix — −25 points (if held in hand at round end)
- All other cards — 0 points
Two special endings change the math:
- Double victory — If both partners go out before either opponent does, your team scores 200 points and the opponents score 0 (no card-counting needed).
- Last out— Whoever goes out last gives all their remaining cards (in hand) to the opponents, and gives all the tricks they’ve won so far to the player who went out first.
Tichu & Grand Tichu
Calling Tichu is a wager that you, alone, will be the first player to get rid of all your cards this round. Successful Tichu: +100 points. Failed Tichu: −100 points.
Grand Tichuis the same wager — but called before you’ve seen your full hand (only the first 8 of your 14 cards). Successful: +200 points. Failed: −200 points.
Only one Tichu/Grand Tichu per player per round, but both partners can call.
Tips for new players
- Bombs are tempo, not points.Don’t hoard them — use them to defend your partner’s Tichu or to steal a long straight you’ll never beat fairly.
- The wish is a weapon. Lead the Mahjong and wish for a rank you know your opponents are short on, to force them to break a combination.
- Phoenix carefully. A −25 swing for forgetting to play it is a brutal way to lose a round.
- Watch the exchange.What your opponents pass to their partner tells you a lot about what they don’t want — and what they’re saving up.
- Help your partner go out.If they’ve called Tichu, your job is to give them the lead at the right moment — even if that means burning a strong combination of your own.
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