Tarneeb 41, 31 & 61

Targets, kaboot payouts, and how the family of Tarneeb games differs across the region.

Tarneeb is a family of games more than a single rulebook. The trick-play core — four players, two partnerships, an auction, a named trump — is constant from Amman to Beirut to Cairo, but the target score, the payouts and even the direction of play shift from table to table. Here is the map.

The race: 41, 31 or 61

Classic partnership Tarneeb is a race to a target score. 41 is the default at most tables and in our game; 31 makes a quick session and 61 a long evening — both playable here as presets. Scores can go negative, and a side that keeps failing bids will feel it: the race to 41 has been lost from +35 more than once.

"Tarneeb 41" — the Syrian cousin

Confusingly, Tarneeb 41 also names a distinct variant, popular in Syria and around the Gulf, that plays by noticeably different rules: every player bids for themselves, the four bids must usually total eleven or more, hearts are permanently trump, and a player scores by hitting their own bid exactly — reaching a cumulative 41 with a successful final round wins. It is a fine game, but it is a different one: the game on this site is classic partnership Tarneeb, where the auction winner names the trump each deal.

Regional differences worth knowing

• Direction of play. The Levant deals and plays counter-clockwise — to the right — as our table does. Diaspora and online tables sometimes run clockwise; the strategy is identical.
• Minimum bid. Seven — a majority of the tricks — is the floor almost everywhere, ours included. Some house rules allow the dealer to be forced in when all four pass; we redeal.
• Scoring the made bid. Tables split between "score the bid" and "score the tricks won". We score the tricks won, so overtricks always count.
• Kaboot payouts vary by house more than any other rule; the table above is ours.

Small glossary

Tarneeb

Arabic for "trump" — the named suit that beats all others, and the game's name.

Kaboot

Winning every one of the thirteen tricks; also spelled kabboot or capot.

The bid

Your side's public promise of tricks, 7 to 13. Breaking it costs the full amount.

Set

Holding the bidding side under their bid — defence's payday.

Void

Holding none of a suit, and with it the right to play anything — including trump.

Keep reading

• How to Play Tarneeb — the complete rules.
• Tarneeb Strategy — bidding, trump play and defence.
• قواعد الطرنيب بالعربية — the full rules in Arabic.
• Tarneeb Scoring — kaboot and the race to 41.