Big Three

Full rules

1. Overview
2. Card order
3. Setup
4. The auction
5. What you can play
6. Playing
7. End of a hand and scoring
8. Winning the game
9. Tips for beginners
10. Variants

Overview

Big Three is a climbing game from Shaanxi province in China: each player in turn must beat the previous play with a higher combination of the same kind – or pass. Before each hand there is an auction (bidding): the highest bidder, the bidder, takes four extra cards and plays alone against the other two, who form a team for that hand. Whoever gets rid of all their cards first wins the hand for their side. The game is named after its highest card: the 3.

• Players: 3, each playing for themselves over the whole game (a 4-player version is under Variants).
• You need: one standard 52-card deck, no jokers, and chips, counters or paper and pencil for the score.

Card order

Every card has a rank (its value). The 3 is the highest rank, the 4 the lowest:

3 (highest) – 2 – A – K – Q – J – 10 – 9 – 8 – 7 – 6 – 5 – 4 (lowest)

The suits (♠ ♥ ♦ ♣) do not matter at all, except for deciding who bids first.

Setup

Play goes anticlockwise (to the right) in everything: dealing, bidding and playing.

1. First dealer: shuffle, and everyone draws a card and shows it. Whoever has the highest number becomes the dealer; here an Ace counts as 1 and J, Q, K count as 0. If several players tie for highest, they draw again. Put the cards back.
2. Drawing the cards: the dealer shuffles, lets the player on their left cut, and puts the deck face down in the middle. Instead of dealing, everyone draws their own cards: the dealer takes the top card, then the player to the right, and so on, one card at a time, until everyone has 16 cards (their hand). Keep your cards hidden and sort them as you go.
3. The last 4 cards stay face down in the middle – they are called the kitty.

The auction

The auction decides who plays alone. The possible bids are 1, 2 and 3 – the number of chips at stake.

1. The player holding the 4♥ bids first. If the 4♥ is in the kitty, the player with the lowest heart starts. This player must bid at least 1.
2. Going anticlockwise, each player either passes or bids higher than the last bid. Having passed does not stop you bidding when your turn comes round again, as long as the auction is still going.
3. The auction ends when two players in a row pass, or as soon as someone bids 3 (the highest bid).
4. The highest bidder – the bidder – picks up the four kitty cards, so they now hold 20 cards. The other two play together as a team against the bidder.

More cards sounds like a disadvantage, but the extra cards can complete runs and sets and so help the bidder go out faster.

Example: Carla holds the 4♥ and bids 1. Anna bids 2. Ben passes, Carla passes – two passes in a row, so Anna is the bidder for 2 chips. She takes the kitty and has 20 cards; Ben and Carla are partners.

What you can play

A play is always one of these combinations:

Aces, 2s and 3s can never be part of any run. So the highest possible run ends with the King, e.g. J-Q-K.

Playing

Play goes in rounds (series of plays onto a pile in the middle).

1. First lead: whoever bid first in the auction (the holder of the lowest heart) leads – plays the first combination – no matter who won the bidding.
2. Beat or pass: going anticlockwise, each player either passes or beats the last play with a higher combination of the same type and the same number of cards: a higher single on a single, a higher pair on a pair, a higher run of the same length on a run, and so on. For runs, the one with the higher cards wins.
3. You may always pass, and passing does not stop you from playing again when your turn comes round.
4. End of the round: when two players in a row pass, the cards in the middle are put aside face down. The player who made the last (highest) play leads the next round with any combination.

Example: after 6-7-8-9 you may play 7-8-9-10 or 10-J-Q-K. You may not play 8-9-10-J-Q (too many cards), 6-7-8-9 (not higher) or J-J-J-J (wrong type).

Example (a round): Anna, the bidder, leads 5 5. Ben passes; his partner Carla plays 9 9. Anna plays K K, Ben plays 2 2. Carla and Anna pass, so the cards are set aside and Ben leads the run 5-6-7. Carla beats it with J-Q-K – no run can beat that, so Anna and Ben pass. Carla now leads a single 4 to get rid of it.

Ben could have played his 2s straight onto Anna's 5s, but then Carla would have lost the chance to shed her small pair. Partners rarely beat each other – they help whoever of them is more likely to go out first.

End of a hand and scoring

The hand ends as soon as someone has played their last card.

• The bidder went out first: each opponent pays the bidder the amount of the bid (1, 2 or 3 chips).
• One of the opponents went out first: the bidder has lost and pays each opponent the amount of the bid.

Example: Anna bid 2. Carla goes out first, so Anna pays 2 chips to Carla and 2 chips to Ben – 4 chips in all. Had Anna gone out first, she would have received 2 chips from each of them.

The winner of the hand (whoever went out) is the dealer for the next one.

Winning the game

Agree beforehand how long to play – a number of hands or a time limit. The player with the most chips at the end wins.

Tips for beginners

• Bid only when your hand has many sets and runs; the four kitty cards are a gamble.
• Remember that 3s, 2s and Aces cannot go in runs – J-Q-K (or longer runs ending in K) cannot be beaten.
• As an opponent, don't beat your partner's plays; pass and let them get rid of cards.
• Keep a 3 or a strong pair to win back the lead near the end.

Variants

All of these are optional – agree on them before the game. Forced bid, bomb bonus and short deck are used in the Chinese online version on QQ Game.

• Four players: everyone draws 13 cards; there is no kitty. The highest bidder calls one specific card from 4 to 10 that is not in their hand, for example the 8♣. Whoever holds that card is secretly the bidder's partner – nobody knows who it is until the card is played. A round ends only after three passes in a row. When someone goes out, their team wins: each loser pays the bid amount and each winner receives the bid amount.
• Forced bid: a player holding three 3s, or two 3s and two 2s, automatically becomes the bidder for 3 when their turn to bid comes.
• Bomb bonus: a quad is called a bomb. If at least one bomb is played during a hand, the payment is doubled.
• Short deck: remove all 2s, all Aces and the 3♣ (43 cards left). Everyone gets 13 cards and 4 go to the kitty.
• Points version: in Scott McNeely's Ultimate Book of Card Games, only the bidder scores: they gain twice the bid if they go out first and lose twice the bid otherwise. The game is played to 20 points. With four players, the team of whoever goes out first gains twice the bid.
• Simplified order: the same book ranks the cards King (high) down to Ace (low), like a Western deck; Aces, 2s and 3s are still not allowed in runs.