How to play Pishti

The rules exactly as High Card Club plays them.

Pishti (Pişti) is Turkey's best known card game, and it is not a trick-taking game. Cards go one at a time onto a single pile in the middle, and the right card takes the whole pile. Four players, two teams: you and the player opposite you share what you capture and share one score.

The deal

A full 52-card deck. Four cards go to the middle: three face down with one face up on top. That top card is never a jack; a jack that lands there goes back into the deck and another card is turned up. Everybody gets four cards. When all four hands are empty, everybody gets four more from the deck, and nothing is added to the middle. Three deals and the deck is gone. The deal moves one seat to the right after every deck, and the player to the dealer's right plays first.

Playing a card

On your turn you play one card onto the pile. Any card may be played; there is no suit to follow.

• If your card has the same rank as the card on top of the pile, your team takes the whole pile.
• A jack takes the whole pile, whatever lies on top. On an empty table a jack takes nothing: it just starts a new pile.
• Any other card stays on the pile and becomes its new top card.

After a capture the table is empty and the next player has to start a new pile. You only ever see the top card and how many cards are in the pile; what lies underneath is for you to remember.

The first team to capture also takes the three face-down cards. Both players of that team may look at them; the other team never sees them.

Pishti

When the pile is a single card and you take it with a card of the same rank, that is a pishti: 10 points at once. A single jack taken with another jack is a jack pishti: 20 points. The capturing card stays face up in front of your team as the record.

• Taking a single card with a jack (when that card is not a jack) is a plain capture, not a pishti.
• The first capture of a deck is never a pishti: the pile holds the four opening cards.
• The very last card of the deck cannot make a pishti either.

Counting a deck

When the last card has been played, whatever is left in the middle goes to the team that captured last. Then each team counts what it took:

• each ace: 1 point
• each jack: 1 point
• the two of clubs: 2 points
• the ten of diamonds: 3 points
• most cards (27 or more): 3 points; at 26 each nobody gets them
• each pishti 10, each jack pishti 20, as they were made

That is 16 points in every deck, plus the pishtis. The table shows this count for both teams after every deck.

How the match ends

The table owner chooses the target before the first deal: 51, 101 or 151 points, with 101 as the default. A deck is always played to its end. The first team at or past the target after a deck wins; if both teams are past it, the higher score wins, and if they are level another deck is played. A safety cap stops any match after 99 decks.

House rules

Pishti has no switches in this version. Two-player Pishti, playing every player for themselves, and the bluffing variant (a face-down card claimed as a pishti) are not played here.

At the table

Your seat has a clock that runs around your avatar. At relaxed tempo you get 60 seconds per card, at normal 30, at fast 15. Run out of time and the table plays a card for you; do that three turns in a row and it keeps playing your seat until you press Take over or play a card yourself. A lost connection holds your seat 60 seconds, or 10 if Discord tells us you closed the game. Leaving a match on purpose gives your seat to a bot for good, and your partner is stuck with it.

The other games

Back to how to play, or read the rules for Batak, Spades, Tarneeb, Baloot, Hearts and King.