How to play 3-2-5
3-2-5 is a trick game for exactly three players, played with thirty cards. Nobody bids. The chair you are sitting in tells you how many tricks you have to take, five or three or two, and those three numbers use up every trick on the table. Beat your number and you get to pull a card out of the hand of somebody who missed theirs, once the next hand has been dealt.
- Players
- Exactly 3
- What you need
- 30 cards, eights up to aces, and two sevens
- How long
- Six hands as standard, around ten minutes
What the game is
Three players and no partners. All thirty cards are dealt, ten to each, so a hand is ten tricks and there is no stock and nothing face up in the middle.
Nobody bids for anything. Your chair is set a number of tricks and you have to take it: five, three or two. Five and three and two make ten, which is every trick there is, so one player's extra trick is always another player's missing one.
Beating your number does two things. It scores, and it earns you the right to reach into the hand of a player who fell short and take a card out of it before the next hand is played. That second part is what people remember. The tricks are how you earn it.
The pack
Thirty cards, because three hands of ten are thirty. Take a full pack, throw out everything from the two to the six, and then throw out two of the four sevens. The two that stay are the heart and the spade.
The ranking is plain and the ace is high. Ace, king, queen, jack, ten, nine, eight, and then the seven at the bottom of the two suits that have one.
There are no card points here and no trick is worth more than another. A trick is a trick and ten of them make a hand. Read that twice if you have come from 28 or 29, because those games sit in the same family and put the jack above the nine above the ace. None of that is true at this table.
The two orphan sevens have a rule attached that some tables play and some do not. This app leaves it off, so a seven is the lowest card of its own suit and nothing more. The settings further down say what turning it on does.
The three seats
The number belongs to the chair. The seat next along from the dealer has to take five tricks, the one after that has to take three, and the dealer has to take two.
The five seat carries the work. It names the trump, it is dealt to first, it leads the opening trick, and then it has to find five of the ten. The dealer has the quiet chair: two tricks, no trump to name, and the last card to the first trick.
The deal moves one seat after every hand and the numbers move with it. Whoever was on five deals next and drops to two, the dealer climbs to three, and the three climbs to five. Three hands and everybody has carried all three.
That is why a match here is always a multiple of three hands. Stop after four and one player has held the five seat twice while somebody else held it once, so the totals at the bottom would be measuring the chairs rather than the players.
The deal and the trump
- Shuffle the thirty and deal five cards to each player, starting with the seat on five.
- That player looks at their five and names a trump suit out loud. There is no auction and nobody else gets a say.
- Or they decline and turn the next three face up for the table to see. The highest of the three names the trump and all three go into their hand. If two of them tie on rank, the chooser picks between the tied suits.
- Then the rest goes out, three cards each and then two, and everybody is holding ten.
Naming a trump on five cards and playing the hand with ten is the gamble this deal is built around. Half of what you will hold is still in the pack when you have to choose. That is why the packets are five, three and two rather than ten at once, and it is where the game gets its name.
The seat that names the trump is always the seat that has to take five. It is never handed to somebody who wants it less, and it comes round to everybody in turn.
Turning three over is a real option and it costs something real. The whole table sees three of your cards, and the suit you end up with is whichever of the three happens to be highest. Worth it on a flat five with no suit in it. Expensive on a hand you could have named.
The other two players see the trump before they see their own last five cards, which is the one small advantage their chair hands them.
Playing the hand
The seat on five leads the first trick and may lead anything at all. After that, whoever took the last trick leads the next.
Follow the suit that was led if you hold it. If you do not hold it, play whatever you like.
Nothing else is forced. You never have to trump and you never have to beat what is already down. Throwing a king away on a trick you have lost is an ordinary play here, and against two players who are counting it is sometimes the only sensible one.
The highest trump takes the trick. If nobody trumped, the highest card of the suit led takes it. Ten tricks and the hand is done.
Keep your tricks where the other two can count them. Everybody is meant to know everybody's running count against their number, because that is what the whole of the play is decided on.
The exchange
This is the game. Everything above it is ordinary trick play, and this is the reason people keep dealing.
Beat your number and you take a card out of the hand of a player who missed theirs. One card for every trick you were over, and one for every trick they were under. The two sides always match, because the numbers add up to the tricks, so nobody is ever left holding a debt that cannot be paid.
- The hand ends and the scores go down. Nothing changes hands yet.
- The next hand is dealt, all ten cards each.
- The trump for that hand is named.
- Now the debts are paid, and only then does anybody lead.
That order is the cruel part and it is worth reading again. The player naming the trump does it without knowing which cards they are about to lose or gain. A hand worth five tricks when it was dealt can be hollowed out before a card is played, and a poor one can be handed an ace.
The player who fell short fans their ten cards face down and holds them out. The player who is owed takes one without seeing it, puts it in their hand, and then picks one of their eleven to hand back face down.
Two kinds of card may not go back. Not the one just drawn, and not a card from a suit you would be left with fewer than two of. So the card you give has to come out of a holding of three or more, and nobody can empty a short suit to build themselves somewhere to trump from.
Both players in the exchange see both cards. The third sees neither, and only knows that something went one way and something came back. Everybody is still holding ten when it is over.
When more than one debt is owed, the order is fixed rather than argued about. The players who are owed draw in play order starting from the seat on five, and the hands they draw from come up starting with the dealer's.
There is no exchange in the first hand of a match, and none after a hand where all three took their number exactly. The most that can ever move is eight cards, which is the dealer taking all ten tricks against a target of two.
Keeping score
A hand pays you your tricks minus your number. Four tricks on a target of three scores one. Two tricks on a target of five scores minus three.
The three scores in a hand always add up to nothing, because the tricks add to ten and so do the numbers. Nobody gains here without somebody losing exactly as much.
Raw tricks are not the score, and the difference matters. A dealer who took two did the job and scores nothing, while a player on five who took two is three down and about to be robbed. The same two tricks, and the best and the worst hand at the table.
Totals run across the whole match and the highest one wins it. Six hands as standard, which is two full turns of the three chairs, and a shared top score is a shared match.
Playing it well
- When you cannot win a trick, choose who does. That one idea is most of the game. A trick that only takes a player up to their number creates no surplus, so it pulls nothing out of your hand next deal, while the same trick given to somebody already safe hands them a draw at you.
- Once you are safe, keep taking them. Every trick past your number scores and pushes somebody else below theirs, which is how you earn the draw in the first place.
- Once your number is out of reach, a trick is worth a point and nothing else. Stop chasing it and start thinking about which of the other two you would rather feed.
- Name length rather than honours. Five more cards are coming and a long suit compounds, while an ace in a doubleton wins one trick and then sits there.
- The dealer's chair nearly plays itself. Two tricks, no trump to name, and the last card to the first trick. Sit on two winners and throw the rest away.
- On five you have to attack from the opening lead. There are only ten tricks, and waiting for a better moment costs you one you were never going to get back.
- Count. Thirty cards, ten in your hand, twenty unknown, and with only two other hands out there the voids show up fast.
The settings
Every one of these is somebody's real table. The standard column is what this app plays unless you change it.
| Setting | Standard | What it changes |
|---|---|---|
| The two sevens | Ordinary low cards | Whether the heart seven and the spade seven are permanent top trumps, above every card of whatever suit was named. Turned on, they belong to the trump suit for following as well, so the heart seven stops being a heart. It changes what a good hand looks like before a card is played. |
| The higher seven | Hearts over spades | Which of the two beats the other while they are top trumps. It does nothing at all with the switch above turned off. |
| Giving a card back | Keep two of its suit | How many of a suit you must still hold after handing a card back. At two, the card has to come out of a holding of three or more, so a short suit cannot be emptied to make somewhere to trump from. Looser tables keep one, or let anything go. |
| The seat that missed by most | The deal just rotates | Whether the player furthest below their number takes the dealer's chair next hand instead of the deal moving along one. It helps whoever is behind, and it stops everybody carrying each number the same number of times. |
| Hands in a match | Six | How long a match runs. Always a multiple of three so the chairs come out even. Three is one turn of the table and nine is three of them. |
| Difficulty | Medium | How hard the bots think about the trump, the card they hand back and which opponent they feed. An easy bot turns three over rather than choose, gives back whatever it happens to pick, and plays two cards in five at random. A hard one weighs the four suits and remembers what has gone. |
The words
- 3-2-5 (तीन दुई पाँच)
- The game, named either after the three targets or after the three packets of the deal, depending on who is telling you. Nepali says दुई where Hindi says दो, and most tables just say the digits.
- Haat (हात)
- A trick. Three cards, one from each player, taken by whoever played the strongest. Ten of them make a hand.
- Baandai (बाँडाइ)
- One hand: a deal, a trump, ten tricks, and a score that settles who robs whom next time.
- Baandne (बाँड्ने)
- The dealer, who is also the seat on two. Plays last to the first trick and hands the job one seat along afterwards.
- Turup (तुरुप)
- Trump. A different suit every hand, named by the seat on five once it has seen five of its ten cards.
- Rang (रङ)
- A suit. Playing one of the suit that was led is rang pachhyaunu, and you do it whenever you hold one.
- Hukum, pan, itta, chidi (हुकुम, पान, इट्टा, चिडी)
- Spades, hearts, diamonds and clubs. Any of the four can be the trump, and the two that keep their seven are hukum and pan.
- Gaddi (गड्डी)
- The pack. Thirty cards here rather than fifty two, with everything below the eight gone except two sevens.
- Satta (सत्ता)
- A seven. Only two are dealt, the heart and the spade, and a house rule can make them the best cards in the pack.
- Chahine haat (चाहिने हात)
- The tricks your chair has to take. Five, three or two, set by where you are sitting rather than by anything you said.
- Satasat (साटासाट)
- The exchange. The cards that move between the player who went over and the player who fell short, paid after the next deal.
- Naheri tannu (नहेरी तान्नु)
- To draw without looking, out of a fan held face down. It is how every card in the exchange leaves a hand.
Every rule on this page is the one the app plays by. Change any of them on the game's own page before you start.