Tarneeb is a trick-taking game for four players divided into two teams in fixed partnerships, partners facing each other. The standard international 52-card pack is used, and the game is normally played counter-clockwise.
Cards and Dealing
13 cards are dealt out to each player, the cards in each suit ranking from low to high: 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - J - Q - K - A.
Bidding
Bidding starts with the player to the dealer's right and moves counterclockwise. The lowest bid is 7 and the highest is 13, and they respresent the number of tricks that the bidder's team thinks they can take. Each bid must be higher than the last, and a player who does not wish to bid at their turn can pass. Once you pass you are out of the bidding for the current round, andhe bidding continues around the table as many times as necessary until it settles on the highest bidder.
Play
- The final bidder with the highest bid announces the trump suit (tarneeb) and leads the first trick and players must follow suit. Each trick is won by the highest card and the winner of each trick leads the next.
- Players unable to follow it have the option to use "trump" cards, which are considered the highest among other cards. The winner of the trick is the player who uses a trump, unless a higher trump is used.
- Round ends when players are out of cards.
Scoring
- The bidding team must take at least the number of tricks they bid.
- The bidding team wins the round if they get the number of tricks they bid or more, the other team scores nothing in this case.
- If the bidding team takes fewer tricks than they bid, they lose the amount of their bid from the total score, and the other team scores the number of tricks they took.
- If the bidding team takes all 13 tricks, they score 16 points if they didn't originally bid 13, and 26 points if they did.
- If the bidding team bids 13 and fails to take them, they score -16 and the other team scores the number of tricks they won.
- The game ends when one of the teams wins by achieving a total score of 31 points or more.
Tarneeb Egyptian
Differs from the rules mentioned above as follows:
- In the bidding round, each bid specifies the proposed trump suit as well as the number of tricks. If the number of tricks in two bids is equal, the trump suit is taken into consideration. The suits are ranked from high to low: No Trump (NT) - Spades - Hearts - Diamonds - Clubs.
- In the bidding round, each player has the right to bid, pass, or double. A double does not count as a bid, however, if no higher bids are made afterwards, the round score will be doubled.
- Passing or doubling does not prevent the player from bidding in future turns. Bidding ends when all players pass.
- The game ends when one of the teams reaches a total score of 41 points or more.
Tarneeb Syrian 41
Differs from the rules mentioned above as follows:
- When dealing cards, the last card is flipped and the other suit of the same color is used as trump, for instance, if the flipped card was Hearts, then the trump is Diamonds and if the flipped card was Spades, then the trump is Clubs.
- The purpose of the bidding round is to specify how many tricks each player will take, there are no winners in this round.
- Each player has only one chance to specify the number of tricks they will take, this number varies between 2 and 13 tricks.
- If the total number of bids is less than 11, cards are re-dealt to players and bidding starts over again.
- After each round, scores are calculated for each player individually.
- Each player's bid is added to / deducted from their scores depending on whether they succeeded in taking that number of tricks or not.
- A team wins once one of its members has 41 points or more, given that the other member's score is zero or more.