How to play Marriage
Marriage asks you to bring a large hand together while watching two things: the groups needed to finish and the point cards called maal. EverestBuzz uses one stated house profile. Learn its opening requirements first, then use the points example below to understand why the first finisher may earn less than another player.
What you need
Two to five players use three standard decks, making 156 cards with no printed jokers. Each player receives 21 cards. Turns go clockwise. Choose the groups route or pairs route before the deal. Agree on Murder or Kidnap for unopened maal and choose Alter at zero or five points.
Card values
The first opening selects a hidden stock card as tiplu. Only opened players see it. Cards of that rank in every suit become wild, along with the lower and upper neighbours in tiplu's own suit. Neighbours wrap around K-A-2 for wild status only. That wrap does not make K-A-2 a legal sequence.
| Loose maal | Points |
|---|---|
| One, two or three tiplu cards | 3, 7 or 12 |
| One, two or three of either same-suit neighbour | 2, 5 or 10 |
| One, two or three marriages, each containing lower neighbour, tiplu and upper neighbour | 10, 30 or 60 |
| Alter: same rank, same colour, other suit | 5 each, or 0 if chosen |
Declared dealt identical triples have special values: ordinary triples score 5, ordinary joker-rank triples 10, neighbour triples 20 and tiplu triples 30. They count once, without also counting as loose maal. Complete marriages are counted before leftover loose cards.
How a turn works
- Draw from stock or take the latest legal discard. You cannot discard that same picked discard during this turn.
- On the groups route, reveal three separate pure three-card sequences or identical triples to open. A-2-3 and Q-K-A work. K-A-2 does not. Dealt identical triples are automatically exposed and protected and still count toward opening.
- On the pairs route, reveal seven exact pairs to open. Exact means the same rank and suit from different decks. A matching rank in a different suit is insufficient.
- After opening, build toward your finish. Opened groups players cannot take a wild discard. Opened pairs players may take a discard only to complete their eighth pair.
- Select an extra card and discard, or choose Finish when the remaining hand meets your route. Keep checking the whole arrangement before releasing a useful card.
How a round ends and Scoring
Groups players finish with seven valid triples including their opening groups. Later triples can be runs, three different suits of one rank, identical triples or legal wild substitutions. Two identical cards plus one wildcard are invalid. Pairs players need eight genuine pairs without substitutions; five unused cards remain after the final discard.
Opened non-finishers normally pay a base fee of 3; unopened players pay 10. Opened pairs players pay no base fee. A pairs finisher adds 5 to every opponent's fee. Only opened players keep their own maal. Murder removes unopened maal; Kidnap adds it to the finisher.
For each non-finisher, net points equal player count × effective maal − total effective maal − fee. The finisher receives the opposite of everyone else's combined net. For three opened groups players with effective maal 10, 3 and 2, total maal is 15. If the first finishes, the others score 3 × 3 − 15 − 3 = −9 and 3 × 2 − 15 − 3 = −12. The finisher gets +21. The three results total zero.
House-rule choices at EverestBuzz tables
Murder and Kidnap change where unopened maal goes. Alter changes its own bonus between 0 and 5. Choose these before dealing. The five-player points example walks through a fuller settlement.
Beginner tips
- Separate your opening groups before planning later wildcard groups.
- On the pairs route, check both suit and rank.
- Read the ledger's effective maal and fee columns separately.
- Check the latest discard's legality after you open.
Marriage here is points only: no money, bets or prizes.