Marriage — play online free with friends

2–5 players · free · no downloads · web, iPhone & Android

Nepal's 21-card festival classic — chase pure sequences, peek at the maal, and score.

The Nepali festival classic: 21 cards each from three full decks. Draw and throw to shape your hand into sequences, trials and tunnelas. Lay three pure sequences face up to peek at the hidden maal card — its family becomes wild jokers and precious points. First to meld everything wins the deal, the deal is scored against the winner, and the table plays on until the host ends the session for the day.

Play Marriage now — it's free

Create a room in one tap and share the invite link — friends join instantly in their browser or in the TableTop app, no account needed to play.

How to play Marriage

The deal

2-5 players, three full 52-card decks shuffled together (no printed jokers).
Everyone gets 21 cards. One card is set aside face down — the maal (tiplu). One card is flipped to start the pile.
On your turn: draw from the stock or pick up the top throw, then throw one card. Pickups and throws are the only things the table log records.
The whole pile stays open — browse every thrown card any time, but only the top one can be picked up.
You can't throw back the very card you just picked up.

Melds

Pure sequence: 3+ cards of one suit in a row (A counts high or low). No jokers.
Tunnela: three identical cards (same rank, same suit) — counts as a pure sequence.
Trial: three same-rank cards of different suits.
Once you have seen the maal, the maal family works as jokers to fill any impure meld.
Tap cards and hit Stage to park a finished sequence, dublee pairs — or loose maal and jokers — left of the divider in your hand. Staged cards are still yours to play; it just keeps your eyes on what needs work.
Your arrangement (order and staged cards) is saved as you go: close the app mid-deal and your hand comes back exactly as you left it.

Tunnela — show it early

Before your first draw of a deal, you may lay a tunnela face up: it stays yours and still counts as a pure sequence toward opening.
Opening before your first draw certifies too: a tunnela among the pure sequences you lay to see the maal counts as shown. After your first draw a tunnela can still open, but it pays no tunnela maal.
A regular tunnela is worth a flat 5. The host picks what the special kinds are worth: a joker tunnela, a maal tunnela (tiplu, poplu or jhiplu), and an alter tunnela.
Tunnelas stack exactly like alters: one pays its value, two pay 3× and three pay 5× the single value — the best tunnela sets it when they differ.
A tunnela is maal like any other: it only scores if you see the maal that deal — no see, no pay, even if the winner showed before your first turn.
Never saw the maal? The tunnela scores nothing — a maal or alter tunnela’s cards just count as plain hand maal, kept or lost under the usual unseen-maal rule. A joker tunnela is worth nothing.
Change of heart? If you switch to the dubli route, a shown tunnela becomes a laid dublee and its third card comes back to your hand — the tunnela bonus is gone.

Seeing the maal

Lay three pure sequences face up (shown tunnelas count) to open: you privately see the tiplu, and the maal family becomes your jokers.
Opening never uses your turn — see the maal before you draw and play on. But you can't draw and see on the same turn: if the drawn card completes your sequences, the see waits for your next turn.
Laid cards are locked — everyone can study them, they never return to your hand, but their maal still counts when the deal is scored.
Poplu is one rank above the tiplu in the same suit, jhiplu one below (A wraps). The alter is the tiplu rank in the same-color suit — if the host left it on.
The tiplu rank in the off-color suits are plain jokers: wild in your melds but worth no maal. With alter off, all three other suits are jokers. In your hand, maal wears an orange star and jokers a blue one.
Maal points: tiplu 3, poplu 2, jhiplu 2, alter 5 or 10 (host’s pick). Holding the full tiplu+poplu+jhiplu trio — the marriage — is worth 10.
Stacks are worth more: a tiplu pair is 8 and all three tiplus 13; a poplu or jhiplu pair is 5, and three of either count as a whole marriage (10).
Alters stack (if the host keeps it on): two alters count 3× the single value, all three count 5×.

Dubli — the pairs route

A dublee is two identical cards. Lay 7 pairs face up to open and see the maal without any sequences.
The 8th dublee shows your dubli and wins the deal — laid ones count, and the leftover cards ride free.
The winning dubli show is itself maal — worth 5, 10 or 15 points, the host picks.

Winning and scoring

Go out by throwing your extra card so everything left melds cleanly — with at least three pure sequences (laid ones count), or 8 dublees.
Maal counts all around: everyone’s maal is measured against everyone else’s, so your net is your maal × the number of players minus all the maal on the table. With 3 players, holding the only 10 maal scores 10 against each of the other two — +20.
On top of the maal, the winner scores the game from each loser: 3 if you saw the maal, 10 if you never opened. It all resolves in one score with the winner — big maal can flip yours positive.
Maal hidden in an unopened hand is lost unless the host allows it — shown tunnelas and laid melds always count.
The deal rotates each round, and every deal’s points add onto a running scoreboard. The next deal goes out once every player has confirmed the result. The table plays deal after deal until the host ends the session for the day — then the final standings are shown, best net points first.

Start a Marriage game