Joker (in Georgian jokeri) is the most popular Georgian card game — the name is all it shares with the film. Four players sit at the table, each playing for themselves, and every hand turns on one question: how many tricks will you take? You say it before the play starts, and you score only if you take exactly that many. On tamashebi.cc joker is played online, free, in the browser, with live opponents and a score sheet the server keeps for you.
The deck and the hands
- A 36-card deck, 6 to ace in four suits. The two black sixes are taken out and two jokers take their place, so there are 34 ordinary cards and 2 jokers.
- Card order, high to low: ace, king, queen, jack, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6. The joker has no place in this order — its owner declares what it does each time it is played.
- A standard game is 24 hands in four pulkas (rounds): hands of 1 to 8 cards, then four 9-card hands, then 8 down to 1, then four more 9-card hands. The tskhrianebi (the "nines" mode) is 16 hands, all of nine cards.
- In the 1–8 card hands the next card of the deck is turned up and its suit is trump; if a joker turns up, the hand is played without trump, called bezi. In a 9-card hand the player left of the dealer looks at three cards and names trump or bezi before the other six are dealt.
Bidding and play
- Starting left of the dealer, each player bids how many tricks they will take, from zero up to the number of cards in the hand. A bid of zero is a pass.
- The last bidder may not say the number that would make all four bids add up to the number of tricks, so someone always fails. On the site that button is disabled.
- You must follow suit if you can; if you cannot, you must trump with any trump; if you have neither, play any card. A joker may always be played.
- A joker played "high" (mojokvra) takes the trick, beating even the ace of trumps; played "low" (gataneba) it gives the trick away. Leading a joker, you name a suit and choose "high", when everyone holding that suit must give their highest card of it, or "take it", when you give the trick away and the others follow suit with any card.
- The highest trump takes the trick, or, with no trump in it, the highest card of the suit led.
Scoring in short
- Bid made exactly: (bid + 1) × 50. Bid every trick and took them all: bid × 100. A successful pass: 50.
- Bid missed, over or under: 10 points per trick taken.
- Khishti (the penalty for bidding one or more and taking none): 200, 500 or 100 per card, depending on the table.
- Premia and moshla at the end of a pulka: a player who made every bid in the pulka gets their best hand counted again, and the others, as a rule, lose their best hand.
How to play joker on tamashebi.cc
- Open tamashebi.cc/joker and go to the lobby, where the open tables are listed. No app or download is needed, on a phone or a computer.
- If you are not signed in, the site offers guest play. Registration is optional; you can turn a guest account into a full one later without losing your games.
- Pick a free seat and join, or create a table. When all four seats are filled and everyone has pressed "Ready", the deal starts by itself.
- To play with friends, create a table, copy the link in the waiting room and send it to three friends — with the password, if you set one.
When creating a table you choose the mode (standard or tskhrianebi), free or Domino Coin, the khishti type, premia and moshla on or off, visibility (open, friends only or password, at least four characters), rated or ordinary, a move time of 15, 20, 30, 45 or 60 seconds, and an optional table name. All of it is frozen when the match starts. Cards are shuffled and dealt on the server, your cards are never sent to anyone else's browser, and the server checks every card and keeps the score. If someone's connection drops, a bot holds their seat with exactly the information that seat would have, and the player takes it back on return.
Only two of you? Try Japanese joker, the two-player version with the same deck, no bidding and open columns of cards on the table.
Frequently asked questions
- How many players does joker need?
- Exactly four, each playing for themselves — not in pairs. For two players there is a separate game, Japanese joker.
- Is there an app to download?
- No. tamashebi.cc runs in the browser. If you like, add it to your home screen from the browser menu and it opens like an app.
- Is it free?
- Yes, completely. Coin tables use the virtual Domino Coin, which is not money and cannot be exchanged for money.
- Can I play without registering?
- Yes, as a guest. The only thing a guest does not get is a rating.
- I typed "jokeri tamashi" or "jokeri online" — is this the right place?
- Yes. jokeri tamashi, joker tamashi and jokeri online all mean the same game: Georgian joker, played here in the browser for free.
- Play joker online
- Joker rules: a complete guide
- The joker score sheet
- Khishti in joker
- Premia in joker
- Joker strategy
- Joker online, no app needed
- Japanese joker online
Every game on tamashebi.cc is free to play. Domino Coin is a virtual in-game coin: it is never money, cannot be bought or cashed out, and means nothing outside the site. The site is available in Georgian, English, Russian and Turkish.
The games on Tamashebi.cc are played in a Georgian-language interface. They are free and use a virtual coin, never real money.