tichu

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tichu

Post by Crunchums » Mon Mar 09, 2020 7:13 pm

Tichu is a (non-collectible) card game that I love, so I am making a thread for it

imma explain the rules by starting with basic concepts and then adding complexity, but if you'd rather just read the rules they're google-able

--

Tichu is a team game for four players - you are partnered with the player across from you. It uses a regular deck of cards (but the suits are different) plus four additional special cards (more on those later). It's a trick-taking game where the main goal is to empty your hand before the other team.

There are different kinds of card combinations that can be played that are mostly, but not exactly, the same as poker hands: singles, pairs, triples, full house, straight (minimum 5), and consecutive pairs (e.g. 8899 or 2233445566). There's also four-of-a-kind and straight flush (minimum 5), which are a special kind of combination called bombs.

The basic sequence of play is:
1) Someone has the lead, and plays one of the above combinations.
2) The next player in turn order has the option to either play a higher combination of the same type and length, or pass.
* When you pass you are just passing for that one opportunity to play; the next time it is your turn again in that trick you still have the option to play
* Aces are high
* For full houses, the tripled card is the value of the full house
3) If it's your turn and you were the last person who played (i.e. everyone else passed), you take that trick and now have the lead. Back to step 1! (but you can choose a different combination)
* If a player is out of cards and would get the lead, the next player in turn order gets the lead

(An example: 2 is lead, 3, 7, pass, 10, pass, pass, Q, pass, pass, pass -> the player who played the Queen takes the trick and now has the lead. They lead 24567 (6 card straight), pass, pass, 456789, pass, 9 10 J Q K A, pass, pass, pass, 9-A takes the trick and has the lead. 333KK (full house 3s), pass, pass, pass. And so on.)

This continues until two players on the same team have both gone out (i.e. emptied their hand).

Bombs are special in that
1) They can be played on top of any non-bomb. Once a bomb is played, the trick type changes to "bomb", and only higher bombs can be played. Unlike other trick types, a longer (i.e. more cards) bomb is considered higher, and can be played on top of a shorter bomb. For example: 2222 < QQQQ < 45678 suited < 56789 suited < 234567 suited.
2) They can be played out of turn order. This leads to some weird gray area on paper, but they're usually not a problem in practice. The easiest way to think of it is that after each pass there is a "bomb window" where a bomb can be played.

ok, but how do you win? each hand each team will score some amount of points, and the first team to some point total (usually 500 or 1000) wins. ok, how do points work? a few things
1) Each hand starts with each player having 14 cards ((52 + 4)/4). At any time before you have played a card (i.e you still have 14 cards in your hand), you can call "Tichu" to wager 100 points that you will be the first player to go out. So if you call and go out first your team gets 100 points, if you call and do not go out first your team loses 100 points.
2) If you and your partner both go out before the other team (one-two, or one-two-ing), that's worth 200 points (and 0 to the other team), which is very good!
3) At the end of a hand that doesn't end in a one-two, certain cards are worth points. But if you're reading this to learn the rules my advice is: don't worry about the card points at all. Instead, pretend you are playing under Richard Garfield's simplified scoring system where instead of cards being worth points, going out first is worth 40, going out second or third is worth 30 points, and going out last is worth 0.
The way that card points actually work, if you really want to know:
Spoiler!
* The tricks taken by the player who who went out last go to the player who went out first, and their remaining cards in hand go to the other team
* 5s are worth 5 points, 10s and Kings are worth 10 points, the Dragon is worth 25 points, the Phoenix is worth -25 points
* When the third player goes out, they take the current trick

ok, but what about the special cards?
The Mah Jong (also known as the 1) has a few properties
* The player with the 1 gets the first lead
* It's the lowest single. Can either be played as a single, or in a straight (e.g. 12345)
* When you play the 1, you may "wish" for any non-special card. Until the wish is fulfilled, if it is a player's turn and that player has a copy of the card that was wished for and has a legal play that includes that card, they must make a play that includes that card, at which point the wish is fulfilled. If the current player does not have a legal play that includes the wished for card they play normally.
The Dog can only be played with the lead. It immediately gives the lead to your partner.
The Dragon is the highest single. It can only be played as a single, but it beats any single, and no single can be played on it.
* When the Dragon wins a trick, you must give away that trick to an opposing player (this only matters for card points; you still get the lead)
The Phoenix is a wild card, and can be used to represent any non-special card. For example you could play a 23 Phoenix 567 straight, or a 22334 Phoenix 55 consecutive pairs.
* Cannot be included in a bomb
* Can be played on any single other than the Dragon, at which point is is valued at that card "and a half" (e.g. if played on a Queen then can be beaten by a King or higher, if played on an Ace can only be beaten by the Dragon). If led, valued at 1.5.
* Does not count as a copy of a card for the purposes of a wish, but you can still be forced to play it due to a wish. If on your turn 12345 is the last played combination with a wish for a 4 and you have 23 Phoenix 56 (and no 4) then you do not have to play, but if you have 234 Phoenix 6 (and no 5) then you are obligated to play.

only two more rules! both of them are about the beginning of a hand:
1) instead of just dealing 14 cards to everyone, each player is dealt a pile of 8 cards and then a pile of 6 cards. before you look at the pile of 6 cards you can call "Grand Tichu" - this is the same as regular Tichu, except it's for 200 points instead of 100.
2) before the hand begins, each player exchanges a card with each other player.

let me know if you have any questions or things you are confused about!

--

you can play online here https://www.onlinetichu.com/
if people are interested then maybe we could play some time! either four of us or just two of us teaming against randos
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Re: tichu

Post by Crunchums » Mon Mar 09, 2020 7:13 pm

(this post reserved)
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Re: tichu

Post by Khaos » Mon Mar 09, 2020 8:14 pm

:wacko:

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Re: tichu

Post by Ashenai » Tue Mar 10, 2020 12:49 am

The Dragon is the highest single. It can only be played as a single, but it beats any single, and no single can be played on it.
The next player in turn order has the option to either play a higher combination of the same type and length, or pass.
So this means that a Dragon always ends the trick unless someone plays a bomb, right?

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Re: tichu

Post by Crunchums » Tue Mar 10, 2020 1:36 am

Ashenai wrote: So this means that a Dragon always ends the trick unless someone plays a bomb, right?
correct!
(and the same is true for an ace-high pair / triple / etc (i.e. any non-single non-bomb trick type))
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Re: tichu

Post by Crunchums » Tue Mar 10, 2020 1:57 am

imo bombs are a great mechanic. without them certain lines are guaranteed to work. with them it becomes an interesting game of risk/reward: do you go for the line that is better if they don't have a bomb, but could get blown out if they do? you can track what rank bombs are possible, but tracking what flush bombs are still possible is much harder. and if you have a bomb, when is the right time to play it? the biggest blowout is usually beating their last lead-taking play (e.g. if you bomb their dragon when their remaining hand is a pair of twos), but that can be hard to nail. and sometimes they have something like a 2-J straight and really only have one way of getting a lead that they need to hold. the frequency with which they occur feels about right (relatively rare, but still common enough to be a concern), they make passing decisions more interesting (you can pass that garbage 2 to an opponent, but maybe that gives them a bomb!), they can swing hands where one team actually had more of the power (i.e. high valued) cards (in fact if the other team has a lot of the power cards then your team is more likely to have a bomb), and they are generally exciting and interesting. the only drawback is that it makes the game awkward to play at airports :P
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Re: tichu

Post by Skeletor » Tue Mar 10, 2020 2:05 am

I played a hand of Tichu in a dream last night, having never played the game still outside of that, which I find kind of amusing

It was definitely not the right rules, which I even noticed in the dream as I did not have 14 cards after the pass. I had QQAAAA7 and was like huh actually how am I supposed to get this 7 out and is there even any way for my partner to help me if they know I have this 7?
wow, [you]. that all sounds terrible. i hope it gets better for you

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Re: tichu

Post by Crunchums » Tue Mar 10, 2020 2:11 am

that would be a very good hand to have!
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Re: tichu

Post by Skeletor » Tue Mar 10, 2020 2:12 am

Well yeah it's only 7 cards
wow, [you]. that all sounds terrible. i hope it gets better for you

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Re: tichu

Post by Skeletor » Tue Mar 10, 2020 2:13 am

I also remember that 3 of the aces were passed to me... by my opponent. Which I also realized was wrong when I noticed my hand was too small
wow, [you]. that all sounds terrible. i hope it gets better for you

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Re: tichu

Post by Crunchums » Tue Mar 10, 2020 2:15 am

Skeletor wrote:Well yeah it's only 7 cards
but even supposing you were going to get 7 more cards at random: 4 aces! and also two queens
Skeletor wrote:I also remember that 3 of the aces were passed to me... by my opponent. Which I also realized was wrong when I noticed my hand was too small
and that's the tea, maybe you were actually playing bizarro-Tichu. do you remember the rules?
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Re: tichu

Post by Juri » Tue Mar 10, 2020 2:27 am

the tichu in his dream is the real one
mankind has it wrong
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Re: tichu

Post by Ashenai » Tue Mar 10, 2020 3:35 am

Look I know it's uncomfortable and no one wants to come out and say it, but let's face it. Skels was cheating. He needs to be shunned for a year. It's the only way.

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Re: tichu

Post by Skeletor » Tue Mar 10, 2020 4:36 am

Ashenai wrote: Tue Mar 10, 2020 3:35 am Look I know it's uncomfortable and no one wants to come out and say it, but let's face it. Skels was cheating. He needs to be shunned for a year. It's the only way.
I can try to dream you guys shunned me for a year
wow, [you]. that all sounds terrible. i hope it gets better for you

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Re: tichu

Post by pterrus » Tue Mar 10, 2020 1:25 pm

Crunchums wrote: Mon Mar 09, 2020 7:13 pm if people are interested then maybe we could play some time! either four of us or just two of us teaming against randos
I can Tichu, but I have to charge. (sorry)

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Re: tichu

Post by Ashenai » Tue Mar 10, 2020 1:55 pm

We could give it a try! It reminds me a little of Hungarian Tarokk, which I enjoyed playing with my friends a while back.

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Re: tichu

Post by Rylinks » Tue Mar 10, 2020 1:56 pm

i am in to play tichu

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Re: tichu

Post by Khaos » Tue Mar 10, 2020 6:32 pm

pterrus wrote: Tue Mar 10, 2020 1:25 pm
Crunchums wrote: Mon Mar 09, 2020 7:13 pm if people are interested then maybe we could play some time! either four of us or just two of us teaming against randos
I can Tichu, but I have to charge. (sorry)
i thought it was pronounced tie-chu

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Re: tichu

Post by Crunchums » Tue Mar 10, 2020 6:35 pm

Rylinks wrote:i am in to play tichu
what times are good for you?
Khaos wrote: i thought it was pronounced tie-chu
tee shoe
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Re: tichu

Post by Rylinks » Tue Mar 10, 2020 9:39 pm

eastern evenings mostly. some weekends

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Re: tichu

Post by pterrus » Wed Mar 11, 2020 3:36 am

I am also in for eastern evening Tichu if it's Mon, Tue, or Wed.

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Re: tichu

Post by Crunchums » Sat Mar 28, 2020 12:17 pm

yesterday i managed to go out 3rd with Dog 22 3 4 5 6 88 9 10 J Q (14th card was a 3 that got wished for) after my partner went out first

the key was recognizing that even if i were able to get in on the 8-Q straight (which i think wasn't going to happen anyway), and even if the 2-6 holds Dog + 2 is almost certainly going out 4th*, so i knew i wasn't going to be able to play the 8-Q straight, and it happened that the only cards higher than Jack remaining were my Queen and their Ace + Phoenix (which i was aware of; i try to count Queen+, among other things). iirc i got a lead because the person upstream of me went out on an Ace (which is poor play if he passed Phoenix to his partner, but sound play otherwise), and then i was able to get out before my downstream opponent: dog to myself, 22† covered by their 9Phoenix, but now with the Phoenix gone my Queen is good.
felt like such a pro. wish i had been streaming

* literally the only way it's possible for it to not (given that the 1 was already played) is if 1) the person upstream of me leads the Phoenix as a single (in which case it acts as a 1.5, so i can get a 2 out), or 2) the person upstream of me wins the trick with the card they go out with, which they shouldn't let happen if i'm sitting there passing on low singles

† i played the 3456 as singles pretty early because i was planning on covering 22 with 88; in hindsight i dunno if that was correct, but it's possible it was for reasons (this post is detailed enough already)
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Re: tichu

Post by Crunchums » Fri May 22, 2020 8:08 pm

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LFG!
(playing with a coworker vs randos)
that first game was especially "wow" - open the game getting my grand broken (i don't regret the grand call, but the other team had a 2 bomb and a 3 bomb), but the next 3 hands were 700-0
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