Gameweave

1000 (Tysiacha)

Tysiacha — "a thousand" — is a three-handed bidding and trick-taking game from Russia and Poland. You bid for the right to a three-card talon, and then for the rest of the hand you are trying to collect the points you promised. The engine of the game is the marriage: a King and Queen of the same suit, which scores a bonus and makes its suit trump for as long as nobody declares a better one.
Objective. Be the first player to reach 1000 points.

The pack

Twenty-four cards: the Ace, 10, King, Queen, Jack and 9 of each suit.
The ranking is the thing to learn first, because the 10 is the second-highest card, not a middling one:
High to low
A
10
K
Q
J
9
Card points
11
10
4
3
2
0
There are 120 points in the pack. That number is why a bid over 120 needs something else behind it — see the auction.

Marriages

Holding both the King and the Queen of a suit is a marriage. Declaring one scores its value and makes that suit trump:
Suit
Hearts
Diamonds
Clubs
Spades
Value
100
80
60
40

The deal

Each player gets seven cards and three go face down to the talon. The deal moves one seat to the left after each hand. The first dealer rotates between games: Player 1 deals the first game, Player 2 the next, then Player 3.

The auction

The seat to the dealer's left is the eldest hand, and in this implementation the eldest is committed to the opening bid of 100. The auction then runs from the seat after them; each player in turn either raises or passes, in steps of five.
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A bid above 120 requires a marriage in hand. 120 is every point in the pack, so a larger promise can only be met with marriage bonuses on top.
•
A pass is final — you cannot come back in.
•
Two passes end the auction, and the last player standing is the declarer.
The eldest hand's compulsory 100 is a house rule that removes the all-pass redeal. The minimum bid is 100 in any case, so it costs nothing in practice.

The talon and the exchange

The three talon cards are named in the action log, where every player can see them, and then go into the declarer's hand — ten cards.
The declarer then passes one card face down to each opponent, first to the seat on their left and then to the seat beyond it. Everyone now holds eight cards.
Face down here means hidden from the other opponent: neither of them sees what the declarer gave the other. It does not mean hidden from the player receiving it, who takes the card straight up into their hand. Your own hand is always face up to you.
Finally the declarer confirms the contract. Having seen the talon, they may raise it — the same 120 rule applies to the raise, judged against the hand they now hold — but they may never lower it.

The play

The declarer leads to the first trick.
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Follow suit if you can.
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If you cannot follow suit and a trump has been established, you must trump if you hold one.
•
With neither, play anything.
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The highest trump takes the trick; with no trump in it, the highest card of the led suit does.
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The winner takes the cards face down and leads the next trick. Eight tricks make a hand.

Declaring a marriage

A hand begins with no trump at all. A suit becomes trump only when someone declares a marriage in it, and a later marriage in a different suit overrides the earlier one for the rest of the hand.
To declare, lead the King or the Queen of a suit whose other half is still in your hand. You must have already taken a trick this hand — which also means no marriage can be declared to the opening trick.
Declaration is automatic here. Leading a King or Queen while you hold its partner and have already taken a trick declares the marriage; there is no separate button, so a press on a card is never ambiguous about which move it means.

Scoring a hand

Count the card points in the tricks you took and add any marriages you declared.
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The declarer scores their contract exactly if they reached it, and loses the contract if they did not. Points above the contract are not paid.
•
Each opponent scores exactly what they collected — card points plus their own declared marriages.

The barrel

Reaching 880 puts you on the barrel: your score is frozen there, and the only way off it is to win the auction and make a contract of at least 120, which takes you straight to 1000 and the match.
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You get three hands on the barrel. Fail all three and you drop to 760.
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Only one player sits on the barrel at a time. If another player climbs to 880 in a later hand, the incumbent is knocked off to 760 and the newcomer takes the seat.
If two players would reach 880 in the same hand, the first of them takes the barrel and the second is held at 875 — otherwise the two would trade places on the spot. Barrel rules vary widely by region; this is one common framework.

Winning

The first player to 1000 wins. Because a score freezes at 880 and only a made barrel contract releases it, the winner always lands on exactly 1000.