How to play Call Break

With all fifty two cards dealt and nothing yet played, each player says a number. It goes round once, starting with the player after the dealer and finishing with the dealer. Here you tap the number you want.

Anything from one to eight. There is no pass and no zero, so every player is committed to at least one trick, and eight is the ceiling even though thirteen tricks exist. Once you have said it, there is no changing it.

Bids are made out loud in turn, so everybody hears each one as it lands. That is the whole point of the order. The dealer bids last and so already knows what the other three have promised, and a seat that has not bid yet shows a dash instead of a number.

The four bids do not have to add up to thirteen, or to anything at all. Two people can bid the same number, and all four of you can bid four each if you like. Nobody is stopped and nothing is adjusted.

Call Break picks your card for you more often than most card games do. Four rules do it, and all four are on at every table here. Learn these once and the rest of the game is easy.

1. Follow suit. Hold a card of the suit that was led and you have to play one of them. No trumping and no throwing off while you still hold the suit.
2. Beat it if you can. While nobody has trumped, if you hold a card of the led suit bigger than the best one down, your card has to be one of your bigger ones.
3. Trump if you are out. None of the led suit, and nobody has trumped yet? Then a spade is your only legal card.
4. Overtrump if you can. None of the led suit, and a spade already winning? Then you have to play a higher spade if you hold one.

What you have to beat is the best card of the led suit, not the biggest card on the table. If somebody has already thrown the ace of diamonds on a heart trick, that ace is winning nothing, and the card you have to get past is still the highest heart.

The beat it rule switches off the moment somebody trumps. With a spade sitting on a heart trick, any heart you like is legal, and you can keep the ace of hearts back for later.

Trumping is compulsory, not an opportunity. You cannot hold your spades back by throwing a small heart away. That is the single biggest difference between this and the trick taking games most people learn first.

Being stuck for a card never lasts long, and how you get out of it depends on what you are holding. Hold the led suit but nothing big enough to beat what is down, and any card of that suit will do. Hold none of the led suit and nothing big enough to beat the spade that is winning, and every card in your hand is legal. Hold neither the led suit nor a single spade, and you were free before the trick started.

A spade lead is a lead like any other, so the beat it rule covers spades too. The seven of spades is led and you hold the four and the nine of spades: only the nine is legal. Lead the jack instead and both of them are.

Take the number you bid, or more, and you score the bid itself. Each trick above it adds a tenth of a point. Come up short and the whole bid comes off your total as a minus.

Bid three and take three: exactly three. Bid three and take five: 3.2, the three plus two tenths. Bid four and take two: minus four. Bid one and take none: minus one.

Overtricks are pure profit here. There is no rule that wipes your accumulated tenths once they reach ten, and no fine for taking more than you promised, both of which some phone versions have. Extra tricks are worth very little, and they are never worth less than nothing.

Totals carry from deal to deal and go below zero readily. They are kept to two decimal places, though with a tenth per overtrick every score you actually see stops at a single decimal.

A deal ends when the thirteenth trick is taken and all four hands are empty. The four trick counts always add up to thirteen. The score sheet then comes up with that deal's bids, tricks and points, and the running totals underneath.

Press Next round and the pack is shuffled again with the deal moved one seat on. A match is five deals as standard, and can be set to one or three before you start. Every deal is played out even when the totals have already settled it.

Highest total after the last deal wins. Nothing is inverted and nothing is settled between players, so the number on your row is simply your score. Finishing level at the top is rare once the tenths are in, and the final sheet still names one seat, but an online table with coins on it calls that a draw and hands every stake back.

Watching the bots, the app presses Next round itself after five seconds, or sooner if you have turned the speed up. At an online table nothing hurries you either. The one exception is a player who has actually disconnected: after forty five seconds a bot takes their turns so the table is not stuck, and the seat, along with anything staked on it, stays theirs.

• Count your certain tricks before you bid. The ace and king of spades are two of them. A suit you hold only one card of is worth something too, because running out of a suit is what lets you trump.
• The bid is the game. Bid five and take four and you are minus five, while the person who bid two and took two is plus two. The careful bid wins more matches than the brave one.
• You cannot look back at a trick. The cards go to the winner and they are gone, and the log strip keeps only the last six lines. Remembering which spades have been played is most of the skill in this game.
• Watch who has run out of what. Somebody who trumped the second round of diamonds has no diamonds left, so leading diamonds again just hands them a trick with a small spade.
• Once your bid is safely made, every further trick is worth a tenth of a point to you. Spending a spade to stop somebody else making theirs is usually worth a great deal more than that.

Call Break is four players here and that control is greyed out. Speed changes how fast the cards and the bots move, and nothing about the rules. These are the settings that change how a match actually goes.

Five things are fixed and have no control at all: the lowest bid is one, the highest is eight, you must beat when you can, you must overtrump when you can, and a trick above your bid is worth a tenth of a point.

Call Break (कल ब्रेक)

The game. The call is the number of tricks you promise, and breaking it is coming up short.

Kal (कल)

Your bid. How many tricks you promise before a card is played. The English screens in this app label it Bid, and the Nepali ones कल.

Haat (हात)

A trick. Four cards, one from each player, taken by whoever played the strongest. Thirteen of them make one deal.

Turup (तुरुप)

Trump. The suit that beats the other three. In Call Break it is spades, always, and it never changes.

Hukum, pan, itta, chidi (हुकुम, पान, इट्टा, चिडी)

Spades, hearts, diamonds and clubs. Hukum is the one that matters, because hukum is trump.

Bandne (बाँड्ने)

The dealer. Bids last, does not lead the first trick, and hands the job one seat on after every deal.

Lead (हात सुरु गर्नु)

To play the first card of a trick, which fixes the suit everybody else has to follow. Whoever wins a trick leads the next one.

Follow suit (रङ पछ्याउनु)

To play a card of the suit that was led. You have to, whenever you hold one.

Void (रङ सकिनु)

Holding none of the suit that was led. Being void is what lets you trump, and unless the spade already winning is out of your reach, it is what forces you to.

Overtrick (बढी हात)

A trick above your bid. Worth a tenth of a point, and never worth less than nothing.

Round (राउन्ड)

One full deal of thirteen tricks. A match is five of them as standard.