Banakil

Players and equipment

Banakil plays two, three or four. At four, you play in two partnerships, sitting across from your partner; at two or three, everybody plays for themselves. You need two ordinary 52-card packs shuffled together with two jokers added — 106 cards in all. Twos and jokers are wild; every other card, three up to ace, plays its own rank.

The deal

The dealer shuffles and the player on their left cuts. Everybody gets 18 cards — dealt two at a time, nine times round the table, or three at a time, six times round. The next card turns face up beside the stock to start the discard pile. The rest of the pack sits face down as the stock, ready to draw from.

Play

The player to the dealer's right leads, and the turn moves to the right from there. Every turn has the same two steps: you draw, and — if you have not emptied your hand doing so — you discard.

To draw, either take the top card of the stock into your hand unseen, or take one or more cards off the top of the discard pile. You can take as many discards as you like, but if you reach past the top card you must take every card that was thrown down after it too — nothing is skipped. You may always take from the discard pile, even on the very first turn and even if the top card is a wild one, and you never have to meld what you take; you can tuck it away for later.

Once you have drawn, you may meld — lay a new combination face up in front of you, add a card to one of your own or your partner's melds already on the table, or swap a card in your hand for a joker standing in a meld. You are never allowed into an opponent's meld area. Then, if your hand is not empty, discard one card face up to end your turn; the single exception is a card you took as the lone top card of the discard pile, which you may not throw straight back.

A meld is three or more cards, and there are exactly two shapes it can take. A sequence is three or more consecutive cards of one suit, running from three at the bottom to ace at the top — a two is never a natural low card in a sequence. A set is three or four threes, or three or four aces, each of a different suit; no other rank makes a set. A two or a joker can stand in for a missing card of a sequence, but never more than one of each in the same sequence, and a joker alone can fill a gap in a set — a two cannot. You can grow a sequence already on the table to as many as twelve cards by adding natural cards, or a two or a joker if it holds none of that kind yet, sliding a wild card along it to make room where needed, but you can never split one apart once it is down. You may only reach into your partner's meld area — adding a card, or swapping out a joker — once you have melded something of your own first.

Scoring

How a round goes onto the sheet: each hand of play is one round on the table. Once a hand ends, work out the number below and the host, or the player it belongs to, types that one number into that round's cell. In a partnership, the side scores one number for the hand, and it goes into the side's own cell — not into each partner's cell separately. The running total is the line everyone is racing towards, and End match banks the result the moment somebody crosses it — SquareScores never sees the cards themselves, only the number each hand produces.

Working out that number starts with two piles: everything in your own meld area (a card you add to your partner's melds counts as your partner's), and whatever is still in your hand. Each card counts like this:

Threes to sixes

0.5

Sevens to kings

1

Aces

1.5

Twos

2

Jokers

4

Add up your melded cards, then subtract whatever is left in your hand — the result can run well into negative numbers on a bad hand. If you emptied your hand entirely, add a flat 20-point bonus on top of that. A player who melded nothing at all skips both piles and simply takes a flat minus 20.

There is one further bonus: going out by melding your whole hand in a single turn, with nothing melded beforehand, is called dhamoon and scores a flat 40 in place of your melds and the going-out bonus. With two or three players that holds whatever the others have melded. In a four-player partnership it holds only while none of the other three players has melded anything; once your partner or an opponent has, going out all at once is scored the ordinary way instead: the value of what you melded, plus the usual 20 for going out.

In a four-player partnership, the side that went out banks whoever went out's own score as the team's score for the hand; the other side adds its own two members' scores together and then subtracts the winning side's other player's score from that total — so a strong hand from your partner helps you even when you personally held nothing.

Round the result to the nearest whole number before you enter it, in the scoring side's favour: a positive score rounds up, and a negative one simply drops its half point.

The sheet only takes whole numbers from zero up, so a hand that comes out negative is entered as 0 for that round, and the shortfall is carried: subtract it from the next hand that player or side scores positively, before typing that number in. A deal at minus 20 followed by a deal worth 26 is entered as 0, then 6.

A worked hand

Two players, racing to 150. Over several turns Dana melds a run of three through nine in hearts, a run of ten through ace in spades, a set of three aces and a set of three threes (eighteen cards in all), then discards her last card to go out.

Dana's hearts run

5

3-4-5-6-7-8-9: four at half a point, three at one

Dana's spades run

5.5

10-J-Q-K-A: four at one, the ace at one and a half

Dana's aces

4.5

three aces at one and a half

Dana's threes

1.5

three threes at half a point

Dana's going-out bonus

20

an empty hand at the end of the turn

Dana's hand score

37

36.5, rounded up

Ravi, meanwhile, has melded ten cards and still holds eight when Dana goes out.

Ravi's clubs run

6

5-6-7-8-9-10-J: two at half a point, five at one

Ravi's aces

4.5

three aces at one and a half

Ravi's hand

7.5

K, Q, 9, 7, 6, 4, 4 and a two

Ravi's hand score

3

10.5 melded minus 7.5 in hand

Dana enters 37, Ravi enters 3, and the race to 150 carries on from there.

Ending

A hand ends the moment a player gets rid of every card — by melding all but one and discarding the last, or by drawing and melding the whole lot in a single turn with no discard at all. If instead the stock runs dry and everybody still holds cards after the final discard, the hand is dead: nobody scores it, and the next dealer shuffles up and starts again. The match itself ends — and banks — the first time somebody's running total reaches or passes the target; any member of the table can bank it once that happens.

Don't meld everything you can

A meld on the table is safe from being counted against you, but it also tells the whole table exactly what you are holding and what you still need. Many strong players hold a completed combination back in hand for a turn or two, especially a set of threes or aces, so an opponent racing to go out cannot see it coming.

Read the discard pile like an open hand

Because you can take several discards at once, and because every card above the one you want comes with it, the pile is a running record of what everybody has passed on. A card sitting near the bottom of a long pile has been offered and refused repeatedly — it is either dead to this hand or exactly what somebody is quietly building towards.

Guard your jokers

A joker is worth four points sitting in your hand doing nothing, which is a heavy penalty if somebody else goes out first. Get it into a meld as soon as you reasonably can, even a small one, rather than holding it for a bigger combination that might never come.

Don't let a weak hand sit at minus 20

Melding even one small combination — a run of three low cards costs you almost nothing in points — turns a flat minus 20 into a score based on whatever is left in hand, which is nearly always better. It is worth melding something just to avoid the flat penalty, even if it does nothing for your overall position.

In partnership, build towards your partner's strength

Because the side that goes out banks only the score of the partner who went out, and the other partner's own tally is taken off the opponents' score, a strong partner melding heavily and going out quickly is worth more to your side than two players quietly maximising their own hands. Add to your partner's melds freely once you have melded something yourself, rather than only building your own.

Scoring the side as a sum

Rather than counting only the player who went out, some tables have each partnership add its two members' individual scores together for the hand, whoever went out. It rewards a side that both played well rather than a side that was carried by one strong hand, and makes the team score a touch more predictable.

A friendlier cut

Some groups let the player cutting the deck keep any wild card — a two or a joker — exposed at the bottom of the cut, redealing them a full eighteen cards all the same by skipping them in the deal for as many rounds as cards taken this way. It is a small compensation for an unlucky cut and changes nothing else about the hand.

Letting the earliest hands off the minus-20 hook

A few tables score zero, rather than minus 20, for anyone who had no chance to play before somebody went out on the very first turn or two — the ordinary minus 20 for melding nothing stands for everyone else. It only matters in the rare hand that ends almost before it starts.

The online version plays a little differently

Online Banakil tables (as run by the Jawaker app) start the first player with an extra card instead of a face-up discard to open the pile, score aces at a flat one point rather than one and a half, and pay out more heavily for going out all at once with nothing melded — 51 points if the other side has melded something, 102 if it has not. Their usual target is 222. None of that changes how the hand is played at your own table; it is worth knowing only if your group has learned the game online and wonders why the numbers look different here.

How many cards do you deal in Banakil?

Eighteen each, however many are playing — two, three or four. It is usually dealt two cards at a time, nine times around the table, though dealing three at a time, six times around, is just as common and comes to the same hand.

What's the target score in Banakil?

It depends how many are playing: two individuals usually race to 150, three to 203, and a four-player partnership to 303. Agree the line before you start, and feel free to move it to suit how long your table wants to play.

Can a two be the lowest card in a sequence?

No. A sequence runs from three at the bottom to ace at the top, so an ace-two-three is not a valid run — a two is only ever a wild card standing in for whatever natural card the sequence needs, never a natural low card itself.

What happens if nobody can go out before the stock runs out?

The hand is simply abandoned: nobody scores it, the cards are gathered up, and the next dealer deals a fresh hand. It happens occasionally in a close game with a lot of cards held back in hand rather than melded.

How do jokers work in Banakil?

A joker fills a gap in a sequence or a set — never more than one joker in the same sequence, and only one in a set — and it is worth four points if it is still in your hand when the hand ends. Once you have melded something of your own, you may put the natural card a joker stands for into one of your own or your partner's melds and take the joker back into your hand to use elsewhere; a joker in an opponent's meld is out of reach.

Do you have to meld something every turn?

No. You may draw and discard without melding anything at all, and you never have to meld a card the moment you draw it — many players deliberately hold a completed combination back for a turn or two before laying it down.