Kali Teeri rules

The six-player point-based trick-taking game, in full.

Kali Teeri is a six-player, point-based trick-taking card game played across South India and beyond. It sits somewhere between Spades and Bridge: you bid for a target, you pick a trump, and — unusually — you choose your partners by naming cards rather than people. Nobody at the table knows for certain who is on whose side until the called cards appear.

This page covers the standard six-player game with one deck. Everything here matches how the game is dealt and scored at kaliteeri.com.

The deck and the points

Kali Teeri uses a standard deck with the 2s removed — 48 cards, dealt eight to each of six players. Only some cards carry points, and there are exactly 250 points in the deck.

The 3 of Spades gives the game its name and is the single most valuable card in the deck. It is also, in ordinary play, the lowest spade — it will lose to any other spade played against it. Carrying 30 points on a card that cannot win its own trick is the central tension of Kali Teeri, and most of the game's strategy grows out of it.

Bidding

Bidding decides who sets the trump and who has to deliver. Players bid the number of points their side will capture, and the bidding goes round until only one player is left. That player becomes the bidder.

A bid is a promise. If the bidding side captures at least the bid, they score; if they fall short, they lose it. Bidding high buys you control of the hand, but it also means you have to find those points.

Choosing trump and calling partners

The bidder does two things: names a trump suit, and calls partner cards — typically two of them.

Whoever holds a called card is on the bidder's side. They do not announce it. They simply are, and the rest of the table finds out when the card is played. The bidder cannot call a card from their own hand, which is a useful thing to remember when you are trying to work out who is on which side.

This is what makes Kali Teeri distinct. In most partnership games you know your partner from the first card. Here the bidder is guessing, the partners are hiding, and the defenders are trying to work it out before it is too late.

Two special calls replace an ordinary trump suit:

• No Trump — no suit is trump; the highest card of the led suit takes the trick.
• Duggi — no trump, and the rank order reverses: 3 is the highest card and Ace the lowest. Point values do not change, which turns the Kali Teeri from a liability into the strongest card on the table.

Playing the hand

The hand is eight tricks. You must follow the led suit if you can; if you cannot, you may play anything, including a trump.

A trick is won by the highest trump in it. If nobody trumps, the highest card of the led suit wins. A card of any other suit cannot win a trick, no matter how high it is — an Ace thrown away on someone else's suit takes nothing and gives away ten points.

The winner of a trick leads the next one. Whoever wins the trick collects every point card in it.

Scoring

When all eight tricks are played, each side counts the points it captured. If the bidding side reached the bid, they win the hand; otherwise the defenders do.

Because there are only 250 points in the deck and a handful of cards carry nearly all of them, a single trick can decide a hand. One 30-point Kali Teeri falling to the wrong side is worth more than several tricks of ordinary cards.

Where beginners go wrong

• Leading an Ace into an empty suit. If an opponent is out of that suit, they will trump it and take your ten points.
• Calling the Kali Teeri as a partner card without holding the Ace of Spades. The 3♠ cannot win its own trick, so you are inviting your partner to hand 30 points to whoever plays a higher spade.
• Bidding for a hand you cannot control. Points are worth nothing if you cannot win the tricks that carry them. Length in your trump suit matters more than raw high cards.
• Forgetting the called cards. They tell you where the bidder is weak — the bidder does not hold what they called.