Teen Patti

Teen Patti is a three-card betting game from the Indian subcontinent, a cousin of three-card brag. This table plays for chips only. Nothing here is a cash stake, and there is no jackpot.

A session is a series of hands. It ends when one player holds every chip, or after the number of hands chosen in the lobby. At a fixed length, the biggest stack wins, and a tie shares the win.

Three to seven play. Everyone starts with the same stack: the boot times the starting-boots setting (100 boots by default).

A random player deals the first hand. The deal passes to the left after each hand, skipping anyone who has left the session.

Before the deal, every player who can pay posts the boot into the pot. The boot is also the opening stake. A player with fewer chips than the boot is out of the session. A player who holds exactly the boot posts it and is all-in.

Each remaining player is dealt three cards face down and starts blind.

Suits never matter. From strongest to weakest:

Sequences, high to low: A-K-Q, then A-2-3, then K-Q-J, Q-J-10, and so on down to 4-3-2. A sequence does not wrap, so K-A-2 is only a high card.

Within a category, the higher ranks win: a trail by its rank, a sequence by the order above, color and high card by the highest card then the middle then the lowest, and a pair by the pair then the kicker.

Equal hands split the pot, with two exceptions. The player who asked for a show loses a tie. The player who asked for a sideshow packs on a tie. An odd chip goes to the first tied player sitting to the dealer's left.

Play passes to the left, starting with the player on the dealer's left. Packed players and all-in players are skipped. One betting action is taken each turn.

The previous player is the nearest seat to the right who is still in the hand and not all-in. That is seat order, not "whoever spoke last," and it is true on the first turn as well.

A blind player has not looked at their cards. Looking is free, it can be done on or off your turn, and it is not the betting action. Once you have looked, you are seen for the rest of the hand.

After the maximum number of blind bets (4 by default), a blind player may only pack. Anything else — a bet, a show — requires looking first.

The stake is the current blind rate.

A player who cannot cover the minimum bet they could make right now may go all-in for what they have left, or pack. A short all-in does not change the stake. All-in players stay in for the show and take no further action, including looking. You are not offered all-in when a legal bet still fits your stack. A full bet that happens to empty the stack does change the stake, and that player is then all-in. A chaal that spends the last chips is that bet, not a sideshow: a sideshow has to leave a chip behind.

A blind player who has used up their blind bets cannot go all-in without looking. Looking is free; if the seen minimum is more than they hold, all-in is offered then.

Boot 1, so the stake starts at 1.

A seen player, on their turn, with at least three players still in, may ask the previous player for a sideshow — and only if that player has also looked. The asker pays a chaal first, which updates the stake, and then asks.

The previous player may refuse. The chaal stays in the pot and play passes to the asker's left.

Or they may accept. The lower hand packs. On a tie, the asker packs. Play then passes to the asker's left.

A blind player and an all-in player can neither ask nor be asked. With two players left, the action is a show, not a sideshow.

The table is told who packed. Neither player is shown the other's cards, and the hand's name is not written down for anyone else to read. A private look at one other hand is not available at this table yet, so the comparison is announced and the cards stay down. The ranking still uses the real cards. Names appear only when a show turns the cards up, and a packed hand is not named later.

When exactly two players remain, the player to act may show. The cost is the minimum bet for their status: the stake if they are blind, twice the stake if they are seen. Only the asker pays, and that payment does not change the stake.

A seen player may not show against a blind opponent. They chaal or pack. A blind player who has hit the blind-bet limit must look before showing, so a hand can always be finished.

Both hands are turned face up. The better hand wins. A tie goes to the player who did not ask.

If the show payment reaches a pot limit, the "asker loses ties" rule is set aside and the hand is a normal showdown instead. The payment still stands.

An all-in player can win only the chips they contributed to, the same way a side pot works in Texas Hold'em. Folded chips count toward a slice. Only a player still in the hand can win one. A blind bet and a chaal of different sizes are still one pot while everyone can cover a bet: the best hand takes all of it, including a show payment. A side pot opens only when someone is all-in.

When no more than one player who still has chips to bet remains, and at least two players are still in, betting ends and every hand still in is turned up. Ties split. The same paying-out is used when one player is left, except the cards stay down.

The lobby can cap the pot, off by default. When a bet brings the pot to the cap or past it, betting stops and the hands still in are shown. If the boots themselves reach the limit, the hands are shown before anyone bets. A sideshow or a show whose payment reaches the cap is cancelled as that kind of request; the chips stay in, and the showdown is an ordinary one.

The result stays on the table until someone still in the session deals the next hand. Anyone who cannot post the boot leaves. If one player remains, or the hand limit has been reached, the session ends.

Looking is offered to every blind player at all times, and an automatic player takes it at once. It will not stay blind. Deeper betting judgment is a separate piece of work.