Tysiac/Tysiacha/1000

Tysiac in polish, Tysiacha in russian, or simply 1000, is an eastern european trick taking game. It is popular in Poland, Serbia, Ukraine and Russia. It is played with 3 players and a standard card deck but only with the 24 cards going from 9 to ace. Its main specialty which makes it different is the ability to change the trump suit during the same round by declaring marriages with the king and the queen of the same suit.

Rules of the game

Dealing

The dealer shuffles and deals 7 cards to each player, and keeps 3 cards aside to form a kitty, which will be fetched by the taker after bidding (see further down).

Bidding

The player who follows the dealer starts the bidding phase, and must bid a mandatory contract of 100 points minimum.
The following players can, at their turn, either bid more points per units of 5 points, or pass. The player who passed can no longer make a bid for the round. It isn't possible to bid over 120 if you don't have a marriage in your hand (see further down).

The bidding phase ends when all players but one have passed. The one who won the bid will be the taker for the round, and is engaged in making at least as many points as declared. The two other players will be the defenders.

The taker then takes the three cards of the kitty, shows them to everyone, and add them to his hand.
Then, he gives any card of his choice to each of the two other players. The cards given to the defenders can be those just turned up from the kitty, or any other one. At the end, each player must have 8 cards for the trick taking phase.

Once the cards of the kitty have been turned up, the taker also has the possibility to raise the value of the contract up to 400 points.

Trick taking phase

As in all trick taking games, the taker leads to the first trick, and then the winner of the previous trick starts the next one.
If a trump suit is defined, the best card of that suit wins the trick, otherwise or if there is no trump in the trick, the highest card of the requested suit wins.

There is initially no defined trump suit. It can be defined and changed several times during the round (see next section).
Card order, trump or not trump, don't vary: ace, 10, king, queen, jack, 9. Be careful that, like in belote and in opposite to jass, the 10 wins over the king. Points don't vary either between trump or not trump, for a total of 120:

Marriage

The player who starts a new trick can, if he owns the king and the queen of the same suit, play one of them and declare a marriage
The trump suit immediately becomes that suit, and stays so until the end of the round or until another marriage declaration replaces it. The trump suit can therefore change several times during the same round.
It isn't allowed to declare a marriage directly at the beginning of the first trick. You must absolutely own both cards in your hand when making the declaration. By playing a king or a queen without declaring anything, you lose that possibility.

Additionally, declaring a marriage gives bonus points, which are most often needed to fullfill a contract:

Scoring

If the taker achieved at least the announced score at the bidding phase, that exact amount is won. If the contract is failed, that amount is lost. Defenders always directly win the number of points they obtained for themselves, regardless of if the taker succeeded or failed.
For example: Alice takes a hand for 140 points against Bob and Cedric. If she scores 153 points, she marks 140. If she scores only 139, she marks -140.

Points effectively counted on the scoresheet are always rounded to the nearest 5 units, but the declared score for a contract must effectively be obtained in order to succeed, otherwise that's a fail.
In the above example, although 139 would be rounded up to 140 on the scoresheet, the contract would still be failed because 139 is less than 140.

Barrel

If a player reaches a score below the victory score, but near from it with a difference less than 120, his score is taken down to 120 points from the victory. For example for a victory at 1000 points, any score between 880 and 999 is taken down to 880. That player is said to be on the barrel. To leave the barrel and win the game, he has to succeed in taking a contract of 120 points or more within the three following rounds.

It's of course possible to win the game directly without ever being on the barrel, for example by realizing 140 points when being at 860 for a victory at 1000.

ABandon

After having discovered the three cards of the kitty, the taker can, if he think he won't succeed, decide to forfait the hand immediately.
In this case, the taker marks 0 points, and defenders each mark half of the value of the contract, at least 60 and always rounded upwards to 5 units. A contract of 100 to 120 gives thus 60 to each defender, 125 or 130 gives 65, 135 or 140 gives 70, and so on.
The player is allowed to forfait only twice during the whole game without any consequence. On the third time, he loses 120 points. It isn't allowed to forfait while being on the barrel.

Going home empty-handed

The player who didn't score any points during a round is said to go home empty-handed. This has no consequence if it happens only twice, but costs 120 points on the third time. Going home empty-handed while being on the barrel doesn't count. Obtaining 2 points, rounded down to 0, doesn't count either.

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