How to play In Between
In Between is the Dashain pot game. Everybody antes into a pot, two cards are dealt face up, and you bet that the next card falls between them. Between, you take your bet out of the pot. Outside, or on either card, you put it in.
- Players
- 2 to 6
- What you need
- One pack of 52 cards and a pile of chips
- How long
- Five rounds, one turn each a round
What In Between is
In Between is one of the card games on Onlinekhabar’s list of what Nepal plays at Dashain, and the one that is nothing but a bet. It is also played as Acey Deucey, and elsewhere as Red Dog.
There are no hands to hold. Every card is dealt face up, and the question each turn is only how far apart two cards are, and how much of the pot you dare to want.
The pot
At the start of each round everybody puts the ante into the middle. That is the pot, and every bet is made against it: a winning bet comes out of it and a losing one goes into it.
Nobody may bet more than the pot holds. When a bet empties it, everybody antes again at once, so there is always something to play for.
A turn
- You are dealt two cards face up. These are the posts.
- Bet any amount up to the pot that the next card will fall strictly between them, or pass.
- The third card is turned, and the bet is settled.
- The turn passes to the next player, who gets two posts of their own.
Where the third card lands
Between the posts, and you win: take your bet out of the pot.
Outside them, and you lose: put your bet into the pot.
The same value as either post, and you have hit the post. You lose the bet, and at tables that play it hard, twice the bet.
Nothing between
Two posts of the same value, or two next to each other, leave no value between. There is nothing to bet on, so the turn passes by itself.
Judging a spread
Count the values between the posts. A three and a queen have eight between them, four to jack, which is thirty two of the fifty cards still to come: a better than even chance. A five and a nine have three between them, and the odds are well against you.
Every card dealt is face up, so a player who remembers them knows exactly what is left. Late in a pack, with the middle cards gone, a wide spread is worth less than it looks, and the pack is shuffled only when it runs short.
The computer’s best players bet the most they may whenever the odds are on their side, and pass otherwise. Played against each other, betting big on good spreads won more matches than betting a share of the pile.
The match
A match is a number of rounds. Each round everybody antes and then everybody has one turn, the first turn moving on a seat each round.
At the end, whatever is left in the pot is shared out equally, and the biggest pile wins. A shared top pile is a draw. The chips belong to this table and are not your coins.
At this table
Your posts are dealt in front of you and printed in the status line with how many values lie between them. The buttons below are your bets: Pass, the table’s sizes, and the most you may, which is the pot or everything you have. The third card lands among your posts in order of value, so you can see at once whether it fell between.
Options
Every table here plays the rules above. These are what a table agrees before the first ante.
| Setting | Standard | What it changes |
|---|---|---|
| Players | 4 | Two to six round the pot. |
| Rounds | 5 | How many rounds of antes a match lasts. |
| Chips each | 200 | The pile each seat starts with. |
| Ante | 5 | What each seat puts in at the start of a round, and again whenever the pot empties. |
| Hitting a post costs | The bet | The bet once, as Onlinekhabar describes the game, or twice, the rule many tables play. |
| Difficulty | Medium | How well the computer reads a spread: the stronger levels count the cards and pass the bad ones. |
The words
- In Between
- The game, called by its English name in Nepal too. Also Acey Deucey.
- Posts
- The two cards dealt face up that the third has to fall between.
- Pot
- The chips in the middle that every bet is made against.
- Ante
- What everybody puts into the pot at the start of a round.
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.