3-2-5

Players and equipment

3-2-5 is a game for exactly three players, known in India, Pakistan and Nepal as Teen Do Panch. You strip a standard 52-card deck down to thirty cards: take out every 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6, then two of the four 7s, keeping only the 7 of hearts and the 7 of spades. In each suit the cards rank A-K-Q-J-10-9-8-(7) from high to low, so the two surviving 7s are the lowest card in their suits. Deal and play both move counter-clockwise, which feels backwards the first time you try it.

Each seat carries a fixed quota of tricks to chase for the deal: the dealer's quota is 2, the seat to the dealer's right is 5, and the seat to the dealer's left is 3. Those numbers never move seat to seat — only the deal itself rotates, so over a sitting everybody takes a turn at each quota.

To settle who deals first, pull a 2, a 3 and a 5 out of the discarded cards, shuffle them face down and let each player draw one blind. Whoever draws the 2 deals first; the 5 sits to that dealer's right and the 3 to the left, so the first deal's quotas match the cards just drawn. After that, the deal passes to the right every time.

The deal

The dealer shuffles and the player on their right cuts. Deal five cards to each player in a round, starting on the dealer's right and finishing with the dealer. Once everyone has five, the player who was dealt first — the quota-5 seat — names trumps out loud. Only then does the dealer finish the deal: three more cards each in the same order, then two more each, so everybody ends up holding ten cards.

From the second deal of a sitting onward, the hands are adjusted before anybody plays a card. Anyone who took more tricks than their quota last deal gets to pull cards from anyone who took fewer: one card for every trick over, one card given up for every trick under. The player short of quota fans their ten cards face down; the player over quota picks one blind and takes it unseen, then slides back an unwanted card of their own, face down, with two rules — it can't be the card they just took, and it has to come from a suit where they still keep at least two cards afterwards. Work through every over-quota player against every under-quota player this way (the seat to the dealer's right goes first if two players are over; the dealer is pulled from first if two are under) before a card is led. Skip all of this on the very first deal of a sitting, and skip it in any later deal where everybody landed exactly on their own quota — those hands stay exactly as dealt.

Play

In every deal the quota-5 seat leads to the first trick; after that, whoever won the last trick leads the next one. You may lead any card you hold. Everybody else must follow suit if they can — play a card of the suit that was led. Holding none of that suit, you may play anything at all, trump included. There is no obligation to beat a card already played to the trick, so a low card can sit happily on top of a high one.

A trick is won by the highest trump played to it, or, where nobody trumped, by the highest card of the suit that was led. Keep the tricks you have won face down but squared up in front of you, so everyone at the table can see at a glance how close each player is to their own quota.

Scoring

SquareScores deals nothing and never sees a card — it only totals what you type in. A round on the sheet is one deal. Once all ten tricks are played, each player enters the number of tricks they personally took — a whole number from 0 up, never more than 10, and the three numbers for a deal always add up to ten between them. That column is yours to fill in; the host may fill in or correct anybody's column, and nobody else may touch another player's. The running total for each player is the sheet's line, and the first column to cross the match's target wins — there's nothing to carry over about who was over or under quota, because that only ever decides the pulling of cards for the next deal, never a point on the sheet.

A worked deal

Three players: the dealer holds a quota of 2, the player to their right a quota of 5, and the player to their left a quota of 3. The ten tricks fall as 1, 4 and 5. Say the three were on 14, 18 and 20 before this deal.

Dealer (quota 2)

15

14 + 1

Right-hand seat (quota 5)

22

18 + 4

Left-hand seat (quota 3)

25, crosses the line

20 + 5

The left-hand seat's total crosses 25 and may bank the match; the other two keep playing if the table would rather chase a bigger lead. Before the next deal is played, the left-hand seat is two tricks over and pulls two cards blind, one from the dealer (one short) and one from the right-hand seat (also one short), and hands each of them back an unwanted card of its own, face down.

Ending

Play runs deal after deal, the quotas rotating with the dealer, until somebody's running total reaches the match's target — 25 by default, though a table is free to agree a different line before the first card is even dealt, and the sheet lets the host move it between deals too. The instant a column crosses the line the match is decided and anyone at the table may tap End match to bank it; a table that wants to stop sooner for any reason can do exactly the same thing, and the sheet simply closes the books with whoever is furthest ahead. Tables that want every seat to have had the same turns play on to the end of a full rotation of three deals.

Hold your quota in your head, not just your cards

Every trick is a point, so your quota is a floor, not a ceiling. Making it keeps your hand safe from the pull, and every trick past it is a point now and a card stolen next deal. Once you are sitting on your number, keep winning. Ducking only hands a point and a pull to somebody else.

The dealer's quota is the gentle one

Needing only two tricks, the dealer can often sit back, let the stronger hands fight each other for the lead, and pick off two cheap tricks late. Your two tricks come cheap, but every trick past them is still a point and a pull, so do not stop at two if the cards are there.

Watch what gets pulled, not just what's played

A card pulled from your hand blind is still information once it's gone — count what's missing from each suit and you'll have a clearer picture of who holds what than the cards on the table alone would give you. The same goes in reverse: when you're choosing what to hand back after a pull, give away the suit you're weakest in, not your best trumps.

Act a little when your hand is fanned out

Since the cards you give up in a pull are picked blind, a confident face and some loose chat about which cards are good ("don't bother with that one") can steer an opponent's blind pick away from your best card. It's within the spirit of the game, and the table expects it.

Play for next deal, not only this one

Every trick over quota is a blind pull next deal, and you choose what goes back. So a big deal now buys you a better hand next time. The cost falls on whoever is short: they are pulled from without choosing what they lose. When you are well over, spend your pulls on the player whose hand you least want to face.

Playing clockwise

Some tables run the whole game the other way: the seat to the dealer's left calls trumps, leads first and carries the quota of 5, while the seat to the right carries the quota of 3. Agree which way you're playing before the first deal, since switching partway through mixes up whose pull comes first.

Turning up a trump instead of calling it

Rather than naming trumps out loud, the quota-5 player can instead turn up the seventh card dealt to them — the middle card of their second batch of three — and let its suit decide trumps. Other tables use the suit of the highest card in that batch, or draw a card at random from what's left of the quota-5 player's hand once the deal is done.

Permanent trump sevens

Some tables make the two surviving 7s permanent trumps, ranking above every other trump: in a deal with clubs as trumps, the order runs the two 7s (the table agrees which is higher), then ace down through 8 of clubs. A 7 counts as a trump whatever is led. When trumps are led you must follow with a trump or a 7, and if a 7 is the only trump you hold, you must play it. When the 7's own printed suit is led, that 7 cannot be played unless you hold no other card of that suit.

A bonus for sweeping the deal

Some tables score an extra 5 points — 15 in total — to anyone who wins all ten tricks of a single deal, on top of the normal one point a trick. On the sheet, the sweeper enters 15 for that deal, and the other two enter 0.

Trading a trick instead of a card

Rather than pulling a card, a player below quota may offer to simply hand over a whole trick to whoever is over, so the over-quota player's score rises by one and the under-quota player's falls by one, with no cards changing hands at all. On the sheet, the host takes one off the under-quota player's cell for the deal just played and adds one to the over-quota player's.

The loser deals

Instead of the deal always passing to the right, some tables have whoever finished furthest below their quota deal the next hand; when everybody hits their own quota exactly, the deal moves to the right as usual. Where two players tie for furthest short, the deal goes to whichever of them sits next in the rotation.

How many cards do you deal in 3-2-5?

Ten to each of the three players, dealt in three batches — five, then three, then two — with trumps named after the first batch of five has gone round.

What are the quotas in 3-2-5?

The dealer needs 2 tricks, the seat to the dealer's right needs 5, and the seat to the dealer's left needs 3. The numbers stay with the seat, not the player, so everyone takes a turn at each one as the deal rotates.

Can 3-2-5 be played with four players?

No. The three quotas, the pulling of cards and the trump-naming seat are all built around exactly three hands, so the game is fixed at three players.

What happens if everyone makes their quota exactly?

Nothing is pulled before the next deal — every hand stays exactly as it was dealt, and play simply carries on. Pulling cards only happens when at least one player finished over quota and at least one finished under.

How do you pull cards in 3-2-5?

A player who took more tricks than their quota picks a card blind from the face-down, fanned-out hand of a player who took fewer, one card for every trick over, and hands back an unwanted card in return — never the one just taken, and never from a suit where fewer than two would be left behind.

How do you win 3-2-5?

The traditional rules only score a point a trick and set no finish, so the table agrees one; on SquareScores that is a target of 25 points by default, though the host can move the line between deals. The first player whose running total of tricks crosses it wins, and any player may tap End match to bank it, or sooner if the table decides to stop.