How to play Georgian Joker

Joker is Georgia's favourite card game, played at kitchen tables, in courtyards and online from Tbilisi to Batumi, and well known across the former Soviet Union under its Russian name, «Джокер». Four players each play for themselves. Before every hand you say exactly how many tricks you will take, and only an exact bid scores well: one trick too many is as bad as one too few. Two jokers turn every hand upside down, because a joker can win any trick or lose any trick, whichever its owner needs. Judging your hand, counting the cards and steering the play to land on your number make it a game of real skill.

How to play on skill.games

When you open the game, the settings appear. Choose a difficulty (Easy, Normal, Hard or Crazy), the game (the full game or Nines), whether the khisht penalty applies and which premium you play, then press PLAY.

• The table: you sit at the bottom; Nino, Giorgi and Levan sit to your left, across and to your right, and each plays for himself. A "D" marks the dealer. Each name shows that player's total, and during play a badge shows tricks taken against the bid, such as 1/2: green when a player is exactly on the bid, red once he is over.
• The top band: the status line says whose turn it is. One chip shows the hand number and how many cards each player holds; the other shows the trump (or "No trump") and the sum of the bids against the cards, such as "Bids 6/5", so you can see at a glance whether the table has bid too much or too little.
• Naming the trump: in a 9-card hand, the player on the dealer's left chooses the trump. If that is you, only your first three cards are face up; tap a suit, or NO TRUMP.
• Bidding: on your turn a panel opens above your hand. Set the number with minus and plus and press BID, or PASS for zero. If you are the dealer and your number would make the bids add up to the cards, the button is crossed out and the status line tells you why.
• Playing: tap a card or drag it onto the table. Playable cards are lifted and glow; a card that isn't allowed shakes and the status line explains the rule.
• Playing a joker: tap the joker and a panel asks how. When you lead it, pick HIGH or LOW and a suit. When someone else led, choose TAKE or UNDER. BACK puts it back in your hand.

After each hand a sheet shows every player's bid, tricks, points and total, and any block premium; press NEXT HAND to continue. You can drag cards within your hand to rearrange them. The menu button in the top-left corner pauses, starts a new game or turns the sound off, and the "?" opens this guide. The game is saved as you play, so you can press CONTINUE later. At the end, the results screen shows your place, everyone's total, how many of your bids you made and your statistics.

Rules

The cards. 36 cards: ace, king, queen, jack, ten, nine, eight, seven and six of each suit, aces high, except that the two black sixes are replaced by the two jokers.

The game. The full game has 24 hands in four blocks: hands of 1, 2, 3 and so on up to 8 cards; four hands of 9 cards; hands of 8 cards down to 1; and four more hands of 9. The Nines game has only 9-card hands, four blocks of four. The first dealer is chosen at random, and the deal passes to the left.

The trump. In hands of 1 to 8 cards, the card after the deal is turned over and its suit is trump; if it is a joker, the hand is played with no trump. In 9-card hands every card is dealt, so the player on the dealer's left names the trump, or no trump, after seeing only his first three cards.

Bidding. Starting from the dealer's left, each player bids once how many tricks he will take, from zero ("pass") up to the number of cards in the hand. The dealer bids last and may not make the bids add up to the number of cards, so in every hand at least one player must miss.

The play. The player on the dealer's left leads. You must follow the suit led if you can. If you can't, you must play a trump if you have one; otherwise you may play anything. The highest trump wins the trick, or, with no trump in it, the highest card of the suit led. The winner leads the next trick.

The jokers. A joker may be played at any time, even when you could follow suit. - Led HIGH ("I want"), naming a suit: every other player must play his highest card of that suit; without one, a trump; without that, anything. The joker wins the trick. - Led LOW, naming a suit: the others follow that suit as usual, and the highest card of it, or a trump, wins. Only if nobody plays the named suit or a trump does the joker win. - Played to another player's lead: TAKE wins the trick; UNDER loses it. - If both jokers are played high in the same trick, the second one wins.

Scoring. An exact bid scores 50 points for each trick bid plus 50: a bid of 1 scores 100, 2 scores 150, 3 scores 200. A pass that takes no tricks scores 50. Bidding every trick of the hand and taking them all scores 100 per trick, so 9 out of 9 is worth 900. A missed bid scores 10 for each trick taken.

The khisht. A player who bid one or more and took no tricks at all gets the khisht (Georgian for "bayonet"): minus 200 points, or minus 500 in a 9-card hand. It can be switched off in the settings.

The premium. A player who makes every bid in a block gets his best hand of that block again, so it counts double. With the Georgian premium, if he is the only one who did it, each other player also loses his own best hand of the block.

Winning. After the last hand, the highest total wins.

Strategy tips

• A joker is a sure trick, and a sure escape. Count each joker as one trick when you bid, but remember you can also throw it UNDER to dodge a trick you don't want.
• Bid low in short hands. With one or two cards, a single trump or ace is often all you need; passing with a weak card is the safest score on the table.
• Watch the bid total. When the bids add up to more than the cards, someone will fall short and tricks will be fought over; when they add up to less, someone will be forced to take extra tricks. Plan which kind of hand it is.
• Use HIGH to clear the way. Leading a joker HIGH in a suit forces everyone's best card of that suit out, which can turn your king or queen into a winner.
• Lead LOW to pass the lead. A low joker in a suit everyone holds loses the trick cheaply and leaves the next lead to someone else.
• Never risk the khisht. If your bid is slipping away, make sure of at least one trick: a missed bid with tricks still scores, a bid with none costs 200 or 500.
• Chase the premium. Late in a block, a player who has made every bid has a lot to gain, and you have a lot to lose; pushing him one trick over is worth more than your own small gains.
• Count the trumps. Players who couldn't follow suit and didn't trump have no trumps left; that tells you which of your cards are safe.

Difficulty levels

The difficulty you choose sets all three computer players:

• Easy: bids by a rough count of its cards, forgets the cards of earlier tricks and often plays a careless card.
• Normal: counts its tricks carefully, remembers every card played, and plays to its bid: it wins the tricks it needs, ducks the ones it doesn't, and uses the joker when it must.
• Hard: before bidding, plays its hand out in many imagined deals and bids the number that scores best; before each card, plays out every choice, including each way of calling a joker, in deals that fit what the others have shown.
• Crazy: the strongest: far more imagined deals, deals that fit what everyone bid and every card a HIGH joker forced out, and it plays to keep its rivals off their bids too.

Modes

• Game: the full game (24 hands, 1 to 8 cards, four 9s, 8 down to 1, four 9s) or Nines (16 hands of 9 cards). Statistics are kept for each difficulty and each game.
• Khisht: on (minus 200, or 500 in a 9-card hand) or off.
• Premium: Georgian (the others lose their best hand of the block) or Bonus only.