How to play Tam Cúc

The deck and the ladder

Tam Cúc (三菊, three chrysanthemums; Tam Cuc without the accents) is a popular card game of Northern Vietnam, played at Tết, the Vietnamese New Year, with a deck of 32 playing cards, bài tam cúc, in two colours, red and black, matching the pieces of Chinese chess. Two to four players can sit down, and four seats is the default here. Each colour has one general (tướng), two advisors (sĩ), two elephants (tượng), two chariots (xe), two cannons (pháo) and two horses (mã), and five soldiers (tốt). Rank runs in that order, high to low, and colour only breaks a tie inside a rank, red above black. So a black elephant beats a red cannon, and the red general, the tướng ông, beats everything. The black general is the tướng bà.

Three seats take five cards out of the deck first: both generals, one red advisor, one red soldier and one black soldier, the same five every hand. Two seats use the whole deck, all 32. The cards carry no number, so the board keeps a rank ladder and a list of the sets beside the table.

The sets, and what beats what

A set is a combination of cards you lay. A single card is a set, and it goes by rank, then colour. A pair is two cards of one rank and colour, never generals, and goes by its card. A triple is three cards of one colour: general, advisor and elephant, or chariot, cannon and horse. The general triple beats the chariot triple, and inside each red beats black, so a black general triple beats a red chariot triple. Three soldiers are not a triple. Four soldiers of one colour are tứ tử and five are ngũ tử, together the sons, and red beats black.

A set beats another only at the same size, so a pair meets a pair and a triple meets a triple. Equal sets never beat each other: the one shown first keeps the round. A red soldier pair loses to a black horse pair, because rank comes first and colour only breaks a tie inside a rank.

The deal

Every card in the deck is dealt, one at a time: eight each at four seats, nine at three, sixteen at two, sorted high to low on your screen. The dealer of the first hand is drawn. After that the deal passes to the next seat on every hand, whoever won. The dealer is the House of the first round. At two seats each of you can work out the other’s whole hand at the deal, so the game there is a duel of guessing what has been laid. In our opinion four seats is the better game.

A special case: four or five soldiers at the deal

A seat dealt four soldiers of one colour, or five, shows them straight away. That is the trình làng. The cards go face up into its won pile and count for it, and every other seat sets aside the same number of cards, face down, so hands stay equal. Only the strongest holder shows, five above four and red above black, once a hand. It does not count as the first call, so the ceiling still binds the round after it.

Five soldiers also take the House, the cướp cái. Four do not, except at three seats, where there are no fives and four takes it. The table does all this for you: holding the soldiers back is almost never better (black sons kept for a last-round kết Tốt đen are the one exception), and asking first would tell everyone who has them.

A round: call, lay, flip, show or hide

The House picks a set from its hand, lays it face down and says how many cards it holds, one to five. That number, called out to the table, is what every other seat must match. Each lays exactly the number called, face down and in any order: a real set it thinks is stronger, or spare cards it wants rid of. Spare cards are how you clear a weak hand without showing anybody anything.

When all have laid, the House’s set turns face up. Then each seat following the House decides once, in turn. Show is open only if what you laid is a set of the same size that beats the best so far. If it is not, Show is off and the table says why. Hide sends your cards out of play unseen, and every seat can hide except the House. A shown set becomes the best, and the set it beat goes face up out of play.

Why hide when you could show? Hiding keeps your cards a secret, and a seat that could win may still hide. Nobody ever learns what a hidden set was, not even after the hand.

The owner of the best set keeps only their own cards, face up as points, and becomes the House of the next round. The cards the others laid are out of play. If every other seat hides, the House wins its own round.

The first round has a ceiling

In the first round of a hand no set may hold a card above the ceiling. At four and two seats general and advisor are banned, and red elephant is the highest card allowed. At three seats advisor and elephant are banned and red chariot is the highest. You may lay a banned card as a spare, but it cannot win, and the House may not call one. If the House has no legal call, the ceiling is lifted for that round.

Counting a hand, and a match

Every seat lays the same number of cards every round, so the hands empty together. Each seat then counts the cards it won against par: two at four seats, three at three, eight at two. More than par scores the difference, fewer loses it. Five of eight against one each for the others is plus three and three times minus one.

The bonus counts only in the last round, and only when that round’s House wins it. It has three kinds. Kết đôi is a pair of chariots, cannons, horses or red soldiers. Kết ba is the chariot, cannon and horse of one colour. Kết Tốt đen is a pair of black soldiers, or four or five black soldiers. Every other seat then loses the bonus in points, less one for each card it won and never below nothing, and the House gains it.

Đè is the risk of calling black soldiers last: a red soldier set of the same size beats it. The black House loses the đè amount less one for each card it won, the seat with the red soldiers gains it, and the rest score nothing.

The amounts run in the order kết đôi, kết ba, kết Tốt đen, đè. At four seats they are 4, 6, 8 and 16 points. At three seats they are 6, 9, 12 and 24. At two seats they are 12, 18, 24 and 48.

A match is a set number of hands, a multiple of the seat count so every seat opens equally. Standard is eight hands at four seats, nine at three and six at two. Short is four, six and four, long is twelve, twelve and eight, and plain is the standard length with no kết or đè. The highest total wins, and a tie for first is shared.

How to play Tam Cúc online, and a note on a forum version

Start a table, choose two, three or four seats and send each seat its own link, or take a seat against one to three computers. The computers play by the same rules as a shared table, so learn against them first if you like. If a forum answer told you to split the deck and send out a card each per turn, or you came for Tiến lên, that is another game.