Pişti Rules — How to Play and Keep Score
Pişti is the Turkish fishing game, played with a standard 52-card pack and a single pile in the middle. You capture the pile by matching the rank of its top card, and a jack sweeps it up whatever is showing. Catching the pile when it holds exactly one card is a pişti and is worth more than most whole deals of card points. First to 151 wins.
Overview
Pişti is the Turkish fishing game, played with a standard 52-card pack and a single pile in the middle. You capture the pile by matching the rank of its top card, and a jack sweeps it up whatever is showing. Catching the pile when it holds exactly one card is a pişti and is worth more than most whole deals of card points. First to 151 wins.
Setup
Shuffle a full 52-card pack. Deal four cards face down to the middle and turn the top one face up; if it happens to be a jack it is buried and another card turned instead. Then deal four cards to each player. When everyone has played their four, deal four more from the stock, and keep going until the pack is exhausted. Two players use six deals of four each, four players use three.
How to play
On your turn play one card face up onto the pile. If it matches the rank of the card showing on top, you capture the whole pile. If you play a jack, you capture the whole pile regardless of what is showing. Otherwise your card simply becomes the new top card.
Capturing when only one card was on the pile is a pişti. Turn one card of the capture sideways in your pile so it can be counted at the end.
Two moments can never be a pişti: taking the four cards laid out at the start of the deal, and the dealer's very last card of the deal. When the deal ends, any cards still on the pile go to whoever made the last capture.
Scoring
Count each side's captured cards:
- Each jack: 1 (four in the pack, 4 points)
- Each ace: 1 (four in the pack, 4 points)
- Two of clubs: 2
- Ten of diamonds: 3
- More than 26 cards captured: 3
That is 13 points in cards plus a 3-point majority bonus, so exactly 16 points are shared out per deal — or 13 if the cards split 26 to 26 and nobody takes the bonus.
On top of that:
- Each pişti: 10
- Each jack pişti: 20
By the strict rule the doubled 20 only applies when a jack captures a lone jack. The looser and very common house rule gives 20 for any pişti made with a jack, since a jack takes anything. The setting covers both.
A worked example: your side takes 30 cards including three jacks, two aces and the ten of diamonds, with one ordinary pişti. That is 3 + 2 + 3 for the cards, 3 for the majority, and 10 for the pişti — 21 points.
Ending the game
Deal again and keep adding to the running totals until a side has 151 or more at the end of a deal. If both sides pass it in the same deal, the higher total wins. A dead tie is settled by playing one more deal. The app records that tie as a shared win, so raise the target in match settings to open the deciding deal.
Common variations
Playing to 101 is normal when time is short. Some families raise the majority bonus to 4, others count it only if you take at least 27 cards including no ties at all. A few tables score the two of clubs and ten of diamonds at 3 and 4 respectively, which changes the per-deal total to 15.
Scoring at a glance
| Who wins | First to target |
|---|---|
| Played to | 151 points by default |
| Score sheet | One number per player per round, with a running total |
| Typical round score | 0 – 45 |
| Negative scores | Never — scores only go up |
| Worth knowing | One cell per side per deal. Excluding piştis, exactly 16 points are handed out each deal (13 in cards plus 3 for the majority), so a deal with no piştis must total 16, or 13 if the cards were split evenly. |
Pişti — score sheet
House rules and settings
Every table plays Pişti a little differently. These are the 7 rules groups argue about. Each one is a setting in the app — and changing it recalculates a match that is already in progress, which is the thing no other score keeper does.
Play to: what is the default in Pişti?
The score that wins the game. 151 is the standard figure; 101 makes a noticeably shorter game.
Default: 151. Adjustable from 50 to 500 in steps of 1.
In the app: “Play to”.
Pişti is worth: what is the default in Pişti?
A pişti is capturing when there is exactly one card sitting on the pile, by playing a card of the same rank. It is the big swing in the game.
Default: 10. Adjustable from 5 to 20 in steps of 1.
In the app: “Pişti is worth”.
Jack pişti is worth: what is the default in Pişti?
The doubled value for a pişti made with a jack. Usually exactly twice a normal pişti.
Default: 20. Adjustable from 10 to 40 in steps of 5.
In the app: “Jack pişti is worth”.
A jack scores the doubled pişti: what are the options in Pişti?
Jacks capture anything, so groups disagree about when that deserves the double score. The strict rule needs jack on jack.
Default: Only when a jack captures a lone jack. Three options:
In the app: “A jack scores the doubled pişti”.
Bonus for most cards: what is the default in Pişti?
Awarded to whoever captured more than half of the 52 cards. At 26 each, nobody gets it.
Default: 3. Adjustable from 0 to 10 in steps of 1.
In the app: “Bonus for most cards”.
Jack on an empty table counts: on or off in Pişti?
A house rule where playing a jack when there is nothing at all on the pile still counts as a pişti. Off by default, since a jack normally needs something to capture.
Default: off.
In the app: “Jack on an empty table counts”.
Table size: what are the options in Pişti?
Two-handed is the sharpest version; four in partnerships is the most common at family tables, with partners sitting opposite and sharing a score.
Default: Four players in two partnerships. Three options:
In the app: “Table size”.
Variants of Pişti
Short game
Play to 101 rather than 151, usually three or four deals rather than five or six.
Any jack doubles
Any pişti made by playing a jack is worth 20, not only a jack landing on a jack.
Pişti is also known as
Pishti, Pisti, Bastra, Pisti Turkish. These are the same game — the rules and the score sheet above apply to all of them.
Keep score offline
The sheet above works in your browser. Cardzo for iPhone remembers your players, survives a closed tab, and works in a field with no signal.
Coming to the App Store.