Is it Poker? Indian Game Teenpatti Hits the Web

Ever wonder what all those New Delhi-based contract programmers and service reps do when they're not working for Party Poker? At last, KAP's squadron of crack researches has stumbled across the answer.

Teenpatti, which translates roughly as "three cards," is a popular Indian poker variant somewhat akin to three-card guts. More specifically, it's a variant of the British poker game brag, with some gin-rummy trappings tossed in as well, and aggressive betting is the hallmark of the game. The betting is aggressive... until you actually look at your cards, at which time you lose the option to make further raises.

Say what?

Seriously, it is poker --- and it's a great reminder of just how vast the poker family of games really is. Go check out the rules over at the www.teenpatti.com site, and you'll see hand rankings and betting procedures similar to most other forms of poker. You've got your trips, straights and flushes --- or rather, trios, runs and colours. Yes, it's a three-card game where straights and flushes count, and like other three- and four-card games of its kind, straights outrank flushes. That's correct, as per hand probabilities: it's only when five or more cards are involved in a hand that flushes become relatively more difficult to build than straights.

But it's the betting which really sets teenpatti apart from more staid members of the poker family. As an attack-with-attitude contest, teenpatti looks to rank right up with hold'em games. There are only two states in teenpatti for a player that's still active in a given hand --- "blind" and "seen". "Blind" means that you haven't yet looked at your three private cards, whereas "seen" means that you have. And the kicker? Once you look at your cards, becoming "seen," you can only raise or fold (until only two players remain); only players who have yet to look at their cards can do the equivalent of "calling," and the last player who stays in without looking at his cards gets an opportunity to call and ask for a compromise... though the other player doesn't have to accept that offer and can continue the betting. Yikes.

Even with fixed-limit wagers (the standard variation), the opportunity for wild rounds of betting is all but unlimited. Whoever said fixed-limit games couldn't be dangerous?

So there it is --- if you're brave or foolhardy and your tastes in poker run to the exotic, then give teenpatti a whirl.

As for me, I think a nice, quiet no-limit tourney is next on the agenda.