Banakil

How to play

1. Four players in two teams, partners opposite, or two players head to head; you choose this in the game's options. It uses two full packs and two jokers, and play goes anticlockwise.
2. Everyone gets eighteen cards; the player on the dealer's right gets nineteen and starts without drawing.
3. On your turn, draw from the stock or take the last discard, then put down and lay off what you like, and end by discarding, unless every card went down. You may not throw back the card you took from the discard pile that turn.
4. A meld is a run of three or more in one suit, in the order 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 J Q K A, with the ace high only. Or three or four threes, or aces, in different suits.
5. A meld holds at most one two and one joker, and either may stand for any card, in a run or in a set. There is no minimum to go down.
6. You lay off only on your own team's melds, once you have a meld of your own this round. Take a joker into your hand by putting in the card it stands for; a two never comes back, but moves to either end of the run, or in a set to a suit the set still lacks.

Scoring and winning

• Card values: three to six half a point, seven to king and ace one, a two two, a joker four.
• Whoever goes out ends the round: their team scores 20 plus every card in the team's melds, minus the cards left in both partners' hands. The other team scores its melds minus its hands, and loses 20 for each of its players with no meld. Half points round up.
• Going out in one turn with no meld before: 51 to that team if the opponents have melds, 102 if not, and nothing to the opponents.
• If the stock runs out before anyone goes out, the round is dealt again with no score.
• The first team to 222 wins, or the first player to 150 head to head. If both pass it in one round, the higher wins.

Related: Konkan