Tarneeb

Full rules

1. Overview
2. The cards
3. Setup
4. Bidding
5. Playing the tricks
6. Scoring
7. Winning the game
8. Tips for beginners
9. Variants

Overview

Tarneeb is a trick-taking game for four players in two teams, popular throughout the Levant (Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Palestine). In each hand the players bid: they compete to promise how many tricks their team will win. The highest bidder chooses the trump suit – tarneeb is Arabic for "trump" – and their team must then win at least that many tricks. The first team to reach 31 points wins.

• Players: exactly 4, in two teams of two. Partners sit opposite each other.
• You need: one standard 52-card deck without jokers, and paper and pen for the score.

The cards

In every suit the cards rank from high to low: A K Q J 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2. The cards have no point values – only the number of tricks counts.

A trick is one round in which every player plays one card, face up; the best card wins all four. The trump suit is the strongest suit in a hand: any trump beats any card of another suit.

Setup

In Tarneeb, dealing, bidding and play go anticlockwise (to the right).

1. Dealer: choose the first dealer at random. After each hand the turn to deal passes to the right.
2. Deal: the dealer shuffles, the player to the dealer's left cuts, and the dealer deals all 52 cards one at a time, face down. Everyone has 13 cards.

Bidding

A bid is the number of tricks your team promises to win out of 13 – at least 7, at most 13.

1. The player to the dealer's right speaks first, then the others in turn to the right.
2. At your turn you either bid a number higher than the last bid, or pass.
3. Once you have passed you are out of the bidding for this hand – you can't come back in.
4. The bidding goes round as often as needed until three players have passed. The last one to bid is the declarer, and their bid is the contract.
5. If all four players pass at their first turn, the cards are thrown in and the same dealer shuffles and deals again.

Example: North deals. West passes, South bids 7, East 8, North 10. West is out; South passes; East bids 11; North passes. East is declarer with a contract of 11 tricks – East and West together must win at least 11.

The declarer now announces the trump suit (the tarneeb). They may also announce that the hand is played without trumps.

Playing the tricks

1. The declarer leads – plays the first card – to the first trick.
2. The others each play one card in turn to the right. You must follow suit – play a card of the suit that was led – if you can.
3. If you have no card of the suit led, you may play any card: a trump (to try to win the trick) or a card of another suit (to throw it away).
4. Who wins: the highest trump in the trick; if no trump was played, the highest card of the suit led. Cards of other suits never win.
5. The winner of the trick takes it, lays it face down in front of them and leads to the next trick.

Keep the tricks of each team together so they are easy to count. After 13 tricks the hand is over.

Example: Hearts are trump. East leads the K♣. North has no clubs and plays the 3♥. West plays the A♣, South the 2♣. North wins the trick with the only trump.

Scoring

Count the declarer's team's tricks.

• Contract made (at least as many tricks as bid): the declarer's team scores 1 point per trick won. The other team scores nothing.
• Contract failed: the declarer's team loses the amount of its bid, and the other team scores 1 point per trick it won.
• Kaboot: winning all 13 tricks without having bid 13 scores 16 instead of 13.
• Bid of 13: if a team bids 13 and wins every trick it scores 26. If it loses even one trick it scores −16, and the other team scores double its tricks.

Scores can go below zero.

Example: East–West bid 9 and win 10 tricks: they score 10, North–South nothing. Next hand North–South bid 8 but only win 6: they score −8, and East–West score 7 for their 7 tricks.

Winning the game

Write down both teams' totals after every hand. The first team to reach 31 points or more wins. If both teams get there in the same hand, the higher total wins (on a tie, play another hand).

Tips for beginners

• Count your sure tricks before bidding: Aces, protected Kings and a long, strong suit you could make trump. Your partner will usually add two or three more.
• Choose your longest suit as trumps – ideally five cards or more with high cards in it.
• Lead trumps early as declarer to draw out the opponents' trumps before they can trump your Aces.
• Short suits are useful: once you have no cards of a suit, you can win tricks in it with a trump.
• Don't bid too high to stop the opponents unless the score is close – a failed bid costs you its full value.

Variants

• Longer game: many play to 41, 51 or 61 instead of 31.
• Clockwise: at some tables the whole game is played clockwise; the player to the dealer's left then bids first.
• Deal in one go: some deal 13 cards to each player at once.
• One bid each (Lebanon): each player bids only once; the dealer, who speaks last, only needs to equal the highest bid to become declarer.
• Forced bid: if the first three players pass, the dealer must bid 7.
• Trump lead: some require the declarer to lead a trump to the first trick.
• Redeal for a worthless hand: a player with no card that could win a trick if the suit were led from the top (no Ace, no King with a second card, no Queen with two others, no Jack with three others) may ask for a new deal.
• Egyptian Tarneeb: each bid names a trump suit as well as a number, e.g. "8 hearts". Suits rank no trumps, ♠, ♥, ♦, ♣ from high to low; to overcall you bid more tricks, or as many in a higher suit. Players who passed may bid again later, and a player may double an opponent's bid, which doubles what the declarer's team wins or loses. Bidding ends only when a whole round passes without a new bid. Usually played to 41.
• Syrian 41: a popular form where each player bids for their own tricks (at least 2) and keeps their own score; the game goes to 41.