Game Overview

Thunee is best played with 4 people, comprising of two teams. Your partner sits opposite you at the table and your opponents to the left and right of you. There are two main roles in the game - the scoring team and the trumping team. If you are the scoring team your objective is to win 105 points worth of cards. If you are the trumping team you have to stop your opponents from counting to 105 points. By achieving your objective you will be awarded a 'ball' basically a game point. You must win 13 balls (game points) to win the game.

Jack = 30

Nine = 20

Ace = 11

Ten = 10

King = 3

Queen = 2

The most important rule is to follow suit, if a player doesn't have that suit he may play any other card in his deck. The most important features to familiarise yourself with are as follows;

  • Chopping: A hand can be chopped(cut) if a player doesn't have the suit of the first card on the table. If you have the suit and decide to chop the hand, you are cheating and if caught you will lose 4 game points (4balled). Your partner can cut higher to assume the lead, provided he doesn't have that suit.
  • Undercut: If a player chopped(cut) the hand and his partner doesn't want to take the lead, he is allowed to "undercut" (cutting lower than the initial card used to chop the hand). Your bot partner has been programmed to not undercut though. Undercut is not an officially recognised rule and so, it doesn't exist in our game. So that means that you can undercut as much as you like.
  • Dealing: At the start of each game a coin toss will take place to determine who is the dealer, the trumpman and the person to throw down the first card. Each player receives 4 cards first and then 2 cards - total of 6 cards.
  • Bidding: Also known as calling is done midway through dealing, when you receive your first 4 cards. Bidding is done if you have a favourable hand and would like to trump. The thinking is that you can hold off the chasing team with your glorious hand. When you call, it substracts increments of 10 from the counting score. Here is an example team 1 wants to trump so they bid(call) 10, team 2 feel they have strong cards too so they call 20, team 1 bids again to the value of 30. Team 2 lets them have it. Team 1 will now set trump and Team 2 only have to achieve 75 instead of 105. You cannot bid against your partner. The maximum call is 100, but the opposing team can call 104.
  • Trumpless: During the game the counting team must have at least 1 trump, if don't have trump it will lead to a re-deal. The responsibility to call this is up to the counting team. The game will offer a trumpless button to press, once pressed it will alert your partner, if they don't click it, it will be seen as they have a trump.
  • Thunee: After receiving your 4 cards, if there was no bidding (calling), you will receive 2 more cards. At this stage you have 5 seconds to call Thunee. When you call Thunee there are no trumps and you have to win all 6 hands to gain 4 game points. If you don't you will lose 4 points (4balled). If you were in a bidding war and won it, you as the trumpman get first pick for calling Thunee.
  • Jodhi: A fantastic way to help a player or team that have been dealt a low hand. Your jodhi cards are the Queen, King and also Jack of the same suit. You and your partner can call jodhi upon winning your first and third hand. If you are the chasing team then your jodhi will reduce your 105 count, if you are trumping it will add to the chasing team. Here is an example for the chasing team. Your partner wins your first hand and you have in your possession a Queen and King of Diamonds, you can call 20 Jodhi for that, if the Diamonds are trump, the score will be 20 more, so a total of 40. Thus as the chasing team you would require 85 (105 - 20 Jodhi) and if it was trump jodhi it would require a count of 65. If you were the trumping team in that example, your Jodhi would add to the score required for the chasing team, so it would be 125 or 145 respectively. If both teams have Jodhi, the difference of the two Jodhis will apply. Lets look at the various jodhi combinations;
  • Jodhi Combinations (non trump): Queen and King = 20. Queen, King and Jack = 30.
  • Jodhi Combinations (trump): Queen and King = 40. Queen, King and Jack = 50.
  • Khanuck: directly related to Jodhi. You can call a Khanuck in the last hand if you are going to win that last hand and you believe that your opponent took less score than your Jodhi, So if your Jodhi was 30 + (10 for taking the last hand) and your opponent took at least one hand and have a total score of less than your 40, then your Khanuck call is correct and you are awarded three balls, but if they have taken more than 40 score, your call is incorrect and you get klapped with a 4ball. You can call Khanuck on behalf of your bot partner
  • Double:when you have taken the first five hands and believe you will win the last hand, you can call a double at start of the last hand. If you successfully win the last hand (all 6 hands) you will be awarded 2 balls. Get this call wrong and you will be 4balled. You can call double on behalf of your bot partner