Keeping score in Joker is a craft of its own: twenty-four hands on a sheet of paper, four players, bids, points, khishti penalties and, at the end of each pulka, the premia and the moshla. In a group of friends one person usually keeps the sheet (the purceli), and that is often where the arguments start: how much was the pass worth, what did the khishti cost, whose score got wiped. This article explains how the Joker score sheet (some call it the table, tskhrili) is laid out, how many points go down in each case and how the totals are worked out. The numbers are exactly the ones the Joker on tamashebi.cc uses.
What the sheet looks like
Down the left runs a narrow column: how many cards were dealt in that hand. In a standard game that is 1, 2, 3 and so on up to eight, then nine four times, then back down to one, then nine four more times. Across the top go the players’ names, and each player has two columns: what they bid and how many points they scored. Every hand is one row: bids are written in as they are made, and points at the end of the hand. Hands are grouped into pulkas, and a line is drawn at the end of each pulka: that is where the pulka total, the premia or the moshla goes. At the very bottom is the grand total. At the table, points are traditionally written divided by a hundred: 750 points is written as 7.5, 470 as 4.7, 900 as 9 and −200 as −2. That is only how it is written: the counting is done in whole points, and the site counts that way too, so that after twenty-four hands the total is not off by even one decimal.
How many points go down
- Bid made exactly: (bid + 1) × 50. One of one is 100, two of two is 150, three of three is 200.
- You bid every trick and took them all: bid × 100. This rule overrides the one above: in a four-card hand, four of four is 400, not 250, and in a nine-card hand nine of nine is 900.
- Pass made (bid 0, took 0): 50 points.
- Bid missed, whether you took more or fewer: 10 points for each trick you took. Taking extra tricks is no bonus.
- Khishti (you bid 1 or more and took none): the hand scores 0, and a penalty is added on top: 200, 500, or 100 per card, depending on the table rule.
Nine-card hands are the most common rows on the sheet (eight of them in a standard game, every one in tskhrianebi), so their values are worth knowing by heart. Below is the score for a made bid, with how it is written on the sheet. Other Georgian sources describe a different system in which a made bid pays 100 per trick, so two of two is 200; house rules vary, but this article uses the system described above.
- Pass (0): 50, written 0.5
- 1: 100, written 1
- 2: 150, written 1.5
- 3: 200, written 2
- 4: 250, written 2.5
- 5: 300, written 3
- 6: 350, written 3.5
- 7: 400, written 4
- 8: 450, written 4.5
- 9 (every trick): 900, written 9
Example: three hands of the first pulka
Four players, Giorgi, Ana, Levan and Nika, are playing with the special khishti, where the penalty is 100 for every card dealt. The first three hands go onto the sheet like this:
- Hand 1 (1 card): Giorgi bid 1 and took 1, for 100. Ana and Levan made their passes, 50 each. Nika bid last: the bids totalled 1, so he could not bid zero; he bid 1 and failed to take it, a khishti, −100.
- Hand 2 (2 cards): Giorgi passed but took one trick, for 10. Ana bid 1 and took 1, for 100. Levan bid 2 and took none, a khishti, −200. Nika made his pass, 50.
- Hand 3 (3 cards): Giorgi and Ana each bid one and took one, 100 each. Levan made his pass, 50. Nika bid 2 and took 1, for 10.
After three hands: Giorgi has 100 + 10 + 100 = 210, written 2.1. Ana has 50 + 100 + 100 = 250, or 2.5. Levan has 50 − 200 + 50 = −100, or −1. Nika has −100 + 50 + 10 = −40, or −0.4. Note Ana: she has made all three hands exactly, her pass included, so she is still on course for the premia. The others have already lost the premia for this pulka, though everyone starts afresh in the next one.
Pulka totals, premia and moshla on the sheet
After the last hand of a pulka, a total line is drawn on the sheet. If someone made every hand of the pulka exactly, they get the premia: the score of their best hand in that pulka, once more. The others get the moshla (the wipe): the score of their best hand is taken away. Both are separate entries; the hand’s own score is neither erased nor corrected. For example, in the second pulka Giorgi’s four hands were 150, 200, 100 and 250, all made exactly. That totals 700, the premia is +250, and the pulka comes to 950, written 9.5. Nika’s hands were 100, 20, 300 and 50; the 20 is a missed hand, so he gets a moshla of −300 and his pulka is 470 − 300 = 170, or 1.7. If nobody earned the premia in a pulka, the total line simply shows the sum of the hands, with nothing added and nothing wiped.
The score sheet on tamashebi.cc
On the site nobody keeps the sheet by hand: the server works out every score, khishti, premia and moshla, and the sheet fills itself in. The "sheet" button (purceli) on the table opens it at any time, and it is drawn the way it looks on paper. In a hand’s row the score is shown as a whole number (150 or −900, say), while pulka totals and the grand total ("sul", all) use the usual sheet notation, divided by a hundred (9.5, 1.7).
- The left column shows the number of cards dealt; across the top are the players’ avatars and names, each with two columns: bid and score.
- Each pulka starts with its own heading (Pulka I, II, III, IV), with a note beside it saying whether it is in progress or finished.
- The current hand is on the sheet too: bids appear as they are made, and where the score will go you see how many tricks each player has taken so far. A pass is marked with a dash.
- A made hand is written in green, a missed one in amber, a khishti in red, and a hand cancelled by a moshla is struck through, just as on paper.
- At the end of a pulka the Σ line shows the pulka total with the premia or moshla beside it; the last line shows "sul", the total for the whole game. That total stays green while the player is on course for the premia in the current pulka and turns red as soon as they miss a hand.
- At the foot of the sheet you can see the game variant, which hand is being played and the khishti type, so a −200 never leaves you wondering why.
Frequently asked questions
- What does 4.7 mean on a Joker score sheet?
- 470 points. On a Joker sheet scores are written divided by a hundred: 50 is 0.5, 150 is 1.5, 900 is 9.
- How many points is a pass worth?
- A made pass is 50, written 0.5. If you passed but still took tricks, you get 10 points per trick, as with any missed bid.
- Do extra tricks give me anything?
- No. You missed your bid, whether by taking more or fewer, and you get only 10 points for each trick taken.
- Do I have to keep the sheet when playing on the site?
- No. The server fills it in automatically, and you can open it with the "sheet" button at any time to see what everyone bid and how the score stands.
Joker on tamashebi.cc is free and plays in the browser, on a phone too. 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.