Does the stavka in domino mean a stake?

No. It is the name of the first double played in a hand. It has nothing to do with money or stakes.

How is khishti different from moshla?

Khishti is a penalty for one hand — you bid one or more and took none. Moshla is written at the end of a pulka, when someone else took the premia.

Does a maliutka win the hand?

Not on tamashebi.cc. Only a bura — a full hand of trumps — wins the hand at once.

Glossary — Terms of Georgian Games

The words of domino, Joker, Nardi, Bura and Seka on one page — from stavka and riba to khishti, koks and maliutka, one line each, the way the games on this site play them.

This page gathers the words you hear most often in the games on tamashebi.cc — and at Georgian tables. Each one is explained in a single line, the way the game on this site uses it. Some families and courtyards use a word in a slightly different sense; the longer explanations and examples are in each game’s glossary and rules, linked at the bottom of the page.

Domino

Tile (kva) — one domino piece with two halves, each showing 0 to 6 pips; a set has 28 tiles.
Double (dubli) — a tile with the same number on both halves, from 0-0 to 6-6; a set has seven doubles.
Stavka — the first double played in a hand, the only one that opens on four sides. It does not mean a stake: it is just the name of a tile.
Bazari (boneyard) — the 14 face-down tiles left after the deal. With no move, you draw from it until you find a tile to play.
The two protected tiles — the last two tiles of the boneyard, which nobody may draw; they stay face down until the hand ends.
Open end — an end of the chain where the next tile goes, with the half that matches its number.
Multiples of five — if the open ends add up to 5, 10, 15 and so on up to 35, the player who placed the tile scores that many; any other sum scores nothing.
Pass (gatareba) — giving up the turn. It happens only when you have no move and only the two protected tiles are left in the boneyard.
Blocking (daketva) — the hand ends without anyone emptying their hand: by a riba, or when both players pass in a row.
Riba — a dead chain: every open end asks for a number with no tile left in either hand or in the drawable part of the boneyard.
Nichia (fre) — a blocked hand where both players hold the same total; nobody scores and the match goes on with the next hand.
Writing the remainder — the hand’s winner scores the pips left in the opponent’s hand, rounded up to a multiple of five: 11 becomes 15.
Two blanks — if the opponent is left holding only 0-0, the hand’s winner scores 10.
Match — play to a chosen score: 75, 175, 255 or 355. The winner is declared only at the end of a hand.

Joker

Joker (the card) — two special cards that replace the two black sixes, 6♠ and 6♣, in the 36-card deck.
Koziri (trump) — the hand’s ruling suit: any trump beats any card of another suit.
Bezi — a no-trump hand: when a joker is turned up for trump, or the player choosing trump in a nine-card hand calls bezi.
Bid (tkma, ganatskhadi) — at the start of a hand each player says how many tricks they will take.
Pass (pasi) — a bid of zero, a promise to take no tricks at all. A pass that is made is worth 50 points.
Last bidder — the fourth player, who may not bid the number that would make the bids add up to the number of tricks.
Trick (tsaqvanili) — one round in which all four play a card; the owner of the strongest card takes it.
Mojokvra — playing the joker to win the trick: such a joker beats everything, trumps included.
Gataneba — playing the joker so that it gives up the trick.
Khishti — the penalty for bidding one or more and taking none. How much it costs depends on the khishti rule chosen when the table is created.
Pulka — a group of hands at the end of which the subtotal, premia and moshla are counted; a game has four pulkas.
Premia — for making every hand of a pulka exactly: the score of the pulka’s best hand is added once more.
Moshla — when someone in the pulka takes the premia, the others lose the score of their best hand.
Standard — the 24-hand version: 1 to 8 cards, four nine-card hands, 8 down to 1, and four more nine-card hands.
Nines (tskhrianebi) — the 16-hand version: every hand is a nine-card hand, in four pulkas.

Japanese Joker

Japanese Joker — the two-player version of Joker, with the same 36-card deck. There is no bidding, and every hand has 18 tricks.
Declarer — after seeing the first three cards, chooses a trump suit or bezi; the role alternates from hand to hand.
Column — there are five columns on the table, each a face-up card on top of a face-down one; when the face-up card is played, the hidden one goes to your hand.
The joker in Japanese — it is always played to win; gataneba does not exist here.
Scoring by difference — the player with more tricks wins the hand and scores the difference; nine–nine is a draw and nobody scores.
Target score — 11, 15, 21 or 31, chosen by the table’s creator; 21 by default.

Nardi

Short nardi — the version of nardi played on the site: with hitting, the bar, oini, mars and koks.
Home — your last quarter, six points, where all your checkers must arrive and from where you bear them off.
Kari (a made point) — a point holding two or more of one player’s checkers; the opponent cannot land on it.
Hitting (mokvla) — landing on an opponent’s lone checker; the hit checker goes to the bar.
Bar — the strip down the middle of the board, where a hit checker waits until it returns to play.
Entering (gatsotskhleba) — bringing a hit checker from the bar into the opponent’s home; while it is on the bar, no other move is allowed.
Bearing off (gaqvana) — taking a checker off the board from your home once all your checkers are home.
Doubles (tsqvili) — the same number on both dice; it gives four moves. 6-6 is called du-shashi.
Oini — an ordinary win, 1 point: the loser has borne off at least one checker.
Mars — a double win, 2 points: the loser has not borne off a single checker.
Koks — a triple win, 3 points: the loser has borne off no checker and still has one on the bar or in the winner’s home.
Match — a series of hands to 1, 3, 5 or 7 points; the first to reach it wins.
Davi (doubling) — in some games, a cube for doubling the value of a hand; there is none in Nardi on tamashebi.cc.

Bura

Three-card and five-card — 3 or 5 cards in hand; winning a hand takes 31 or 61 points respectively.
Pairs — five-card Bura for four players in two teams; partners sit opposite each other and their tricks count together.
Koziri (trump) — the suit that beats all others; it is set by the card turned face up after the deal.
Beating (mochra) — covering every card led with a higher card of the same suit or a trump — all of them or none.
Giving (dayra) — laying the same number of cards without beating; in three-card Bura, face down.
Tsagheba (take) — the cards of one round, carried off by the stronger player; also the round itself.
Refilling (avseba) — drawing cards from the deck after a take, the taker first.
“Var” — the claim that 31 (61 in five-card) has been reached. It is made right after a take; a false “var” loses the hand.
Bura (the combination) — a full hand of trumps only; laid down together, it wins the hand at once.
Maliutka (moliutka) — a full hand of one non-trump suit: a strong lead, but it does not win the hand on its own. A table setting can let it be played out of turn.
Davi, se, chari, panji, shashi — the steps of raising a hand’s value, from 2 to 6 points; the names are the numbers of the nardi dice.
Accept or refuse — the answer to a raise; refusing loses the hand at its value before the raise.
Hand without raises — the first hand when either side is one point away from winning the match.
Match — a series of hands to 1, 3, 7 or 11 points.

Seka

Seka is still being prepared for the site. The words below belong to the most common version, described on its page; we will write up the exact rules the site plays when it opens.

Trinka — three cards of the same rank; the strongest combination. The highest is three aces — 33.
Svara — replaying the hand when the scores are tied.
Raise — increasing the value of the hand; the others either match it or drop out.
Dropping out — handing back your cards and leaving the hand.
Showdown — a call between the two remaining players to show their cards.
Bluff — playing a weak hand as if it were strong.

General

Domino Coin — a virtual in-game coin. It is not money: it cannot be bought, sold or exchanged for money.
Guest — a player without an account: a name of 3–20 characters and one of twelve avatars. Rated matches and coin tables are not open to guests.
Rated and casual — a rated match counts towards the rating table; a casual one does not.
Quick play — the system picks an opponent for you.
Bot — a computer opponent for practice in domino and Bura; in Nardi and classic Joker it only takes the seat of a player whose time ran out or who left.

Frequently asked questions

Does the stavka in domino mean a stake?: No. It is the name of the first double played in a hand. It has nothing to do with money or stakes.
How is khishti different from moshla?: Khishti is a penalty for one hand — you bid one or more and took none. Moshla is written at the end of a pulka, when someone else took the premia.
Does a maliutka win the hand?: Not on tamashebi.cc. Only a bura — a full hand of trumps — wins the hand at once.