The goal of the game
Each hand, your team promises to win a number of tricks: your bid plus your partner’s. Make that promise and you score; fall short and you lose the same amount. Overshoot too often and the extra tricks, called bags, start costing you. The first team to 250 (Quick) or 500 (Full) wins the match.
What you need
- Four players in two teams. Partners sit opposite each other.
- One standard 52-card deck, no jokers. Ace is high, two is low.
- A score sheet for each team: points and bags.
The deal
The whole deck is dealt out one card at a time, thirteen cards each. The dealer changes every hand, moving one seat clockwise.
Bidding
Starting with the player to the dealer’s left, each player makes one bid, going once around the table:
- A number from 1 to 13: the tricks you expect to win. Your bid and your partner’s add up to the team’s contract.
- Nil: you will win no tricks at all this hand. Worth 100 points if you manage it, minus 100 if you take even one trick.
- Blind Nil: Nil declared before you look at your cards. Worth 200 points, or minus 200. On Taash you can bid it in any hand, whatever the score: your cards stay face down until you either bid Blind Nil or tap to see them.
Everyone hears the bids already made, so the last bidder knows the most. Both partners may bid Nil. There is no minimum team bid.
The rules of play
- The player left of the dealer leads the first trick.
- Follow suit if you can. If you can’t, play any card, including a spade. Unlike Call Break, you are never forced to beat the trick or to trump.
- Spades are always trump. The highest spade wins the trick; with no spade in it, the highest card of the suit led wins.
- Spades must be broken. Nobody may lead a spade until a spade has been played on an earlier trick, unless they hold nothing but spades.
- The winner of each trick leads the next one.
Scoring
- Contract made: 10 points per trick bid, plus 1 for each extra trick. Bid 5 together and take 7: 50 + 2 = 52.
- Contract missed: minus 10 per trick bid. Bid 5 and take 4: minus 50.
- Nil and Blind Nil: scored on their own, then added to the partner’s contract. A Nil bidder’s tricks never count toward the partner’s bid; they are bags.
- Bags: every extra trick is a bag. Bags carry from hand to hand, and each time a team collects 10 it loses 100 points.
Because the other scores move in tens, the last digit of a team’s score is its bag count: 247 means 7 bags.
Winning the match
Hands continue until, at the end of a hand, a team has 250 points or more in a Quick match, or 500 or more in a Full match. If both teams pass the target, the higher score wins. A team that falls to minus 200 loses at once. Level scores play another hand.
A worked example
You bid Nil and your partner bids 4. You take one trick by accident; your partner takes 5. Your Nil fails: minus 100. Your partner makes the contract of 4: plus 40, with 1 bag. Your trick is a bag too. The team scores −100 + 40 + 2 = −58 for the hand, and adds 2 bags to its count.
Common variations
- Game to 300: a common house target. Taash offers a Quick match to 250 and the traditional Full match to 500.
- Blind Nil only when behind: many groups allow it only to a team trailing by 100 or more. Taash allows it every hand.
- Card passing: some tables let a Blind Nil bidder swap two cards with their partner. Taash plays without a pass.
- Two of clubs leads: a house rule that forces the 2♣ to open the first trick.
The rules take a hand to learn; the bidding takes longer. Read the strategy guide next.