Tichu Rules — How to Play and Keep Score

Overview

Tichu is a partnership climbing game for exactly four players, sitting so that partners face each other. Each hand you race to shed your cards, and the last player still holding cards hands everything over to the opponents. Points come from a fixed pool of 100 card points per hand, topped up or drained by the bold announcements the game is named after. First team past 1000 wins.

Although each hand produces two numbers rather than four, the plain rounds template is the right fit: two team columns, one row per hand, running totals underneath.

Setup

Use the 56-card Tichu pack: four suits of 2 to ace, plus the Mahjong, the Dog, the Dragon and the Phoenix. Deal eight cards to each player, then six more, so everyone holds fourteen. Before looking past the first eight you may announce Grand Tichu. Once you hold all fourteen, every player passes one card face down to each of the other three.

How to play

Whoever holds the Mahjong leads. You may play a single, a pair, a run of pairs, a triple, a full house or a straight of at least five cards, and each play must beat the previous one of the same shape. Pass if you cannot or will not beat it. When everyone passes, the last player to have played takes the trick and leads again. A bomb — four of a kind, or a straight flush of five or more — beats anything except a bigger bomb and may be dropped in at any moment.

You may call Tichu at any time before you play your first card of the hand.

Scoring

Card points, worth 100 in total across the pack:

• Each 5: 5 (four of them, 20 in total)
• Each 10 and each King: 10 (eight of them, 80 in total)
• Dragon: +25
• Phoenix: -25
• Everything else: 0

When three players are out, the hand stops. The last player gives their remaining hand cards to the opposing team's pile and gives every trick they won to the player who went out first. The two team totals therefore always add up to exactly 100.

Then apply the announcements. A successful Tichu adds 100 to the caller's team; a failed one subtracts 100. A successful Grand Tichu adds 200, a failed one subtracts 200. Only the player who called is affected, and the bonus goes to their team regardless of card points. Two calls in the same hand are each settled separately.

If both members of one team go out before either opponent, that is a one-two finish: their team scores a flat 200, the opponents 0, and no card points are counted. Announcement bonuses and penalties are still applied on top.

Ending the game

After the hand in which a team reaches 1000, the higher total wins. If both teams pass 1000 in the same hand, the higher score takes it; a genuine tie is settled by playing one more hand. The app records that tie as a shared win, so raise the target in match settings to open the deciding hand.

Common variations

Some groups cap a match at eight hands and simply take the higher score. Others require the Dragon trick to go to a specific opponent to remove the negotiation. Playing to 500 is common at tournaments running on a clock.