Marriage — play online free with friends
Nepal's 21-card festival classic — chase pure sequences, peek at the maal, and settle up.
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, everyone settles with the winner, and the table plays on until the host settles up for the day.
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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 — 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.
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.
- The host picks what each kind pays: a joker (plain) tunnela, a maal tunnela (tiplu, poplu or jhiplu), and an alter tunnela.
- A tunnela only pays if you see the maal that deal. If the winner shows before your first pickup, it pays the smaller early value (5/10/15) plus its cards’ plain maal instead of the host value.
- Never saw the maal? The tunnela pays 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 pays at settlement.
- 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 pay 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 pay 3× the single value, all three pay 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.
- Lay the 8th to show your dubli: you are locked into the pairs route, and winning pays double from everyone.
- A shown dubli is itself maal — worth 5, 10 or 15 points, the host picks.
- A dubli win is 10 pairs plus one free card — laid dublees count.
Winning and settling
- Go out by throwing your extra card so everything left melds cleanly — with at least three pure sequences (laid ones count), or a full dubli hand.
- Maal pays all around: everyone pays everyone’s maal, 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 collects 10 from each of the other two — +20.
- On top of the maal, each loser pays the winner the game: 3 if you saw the maal, 10 if you never opened. It all settles in one payment 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.
- A shown dubli win doubles the 3/10 game payments.
- The winner deals the next hand, and every deal’s payments add onto a running ledger. The table plays deal after deal until the host settles up for the day — then the ledger is squared with the shortest list of who pays whom.