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Board Game Entry
Information
Designed By
Art By
Published By
Year Published
1991
# of Players:
3 − 6
User Suggested # of Players
Best with 4 players
Recommended with 4 players
(102 voters) [poll]
Playing Time
60 minutes
Mfg Suggested Ages
10 and up
User Suggested Ages
12 and up
(16 voters) [poll]
Language Dependence
No necessary in-game text
(24 voters) [poll]
Category
Mechanic
Primary Name
Tichu
Alternate Names
Tai Pan
티츄
Expanded By Show Expansions »
Families
Description Edit | History

Partnership climbing card game -- object is rid yourself of your hand. The deck is a standard 52-card pack with four special cards added. When it's your turn, you may either beat the current top card combination or pass. If play passes all the way back to the player who laid the top cards, he wins the trick and can lead the next one. The card led determines the only combination of cards to be played on that trick. So if a single card is led, then only single cards are played. If a straight of seven cards is led, then only straights of seven cards, etc. The last player out gives all the cards he won to the player who exited first, and the last player's unplayed cards are handed to the opposite team. Fives, Tens and Kings are worth points, with each hand worth one hundred points (without bonuses). The first team to 1000 points wins.

More Information Edit | History

History
Tichu was derived from a Chinese game called Zheng Shangyou, which can be translated as "struggling upstream". The Western world was made aware of it in 1979, during a visit to China by some British Go players.

There is a related Chinese game called Zheng Fen, which has point scoring cards identical to Tichu's. The 4 special cards in Tichu replace the 4 jokers in the Chinese game, in the Chinese game, the 4 jokers all play a role similar to the Dragon.

Awards

Online Play

  • BrettspielWelt (real-time)
  • Gravon (real-time; site mostly in German, java applet available in English))

Tichu Microbadges : http://files.boardgamegeek.com/images/microbadges/dog.gif http://files.boardgamegeek.com/images/microbadges/dragon.gif http://files.boardgamegeek.com/images/microbadges/phoenix.gif http://files.boardgamegeek.com/images/microbadges/mahjong.gif http://files.boardgamegeek.com/images/microbadges/mb_tichu_master.gif http://files.boardgamegeek.com/images/microbadges/tichudragon2.png

Important note: while the rules include variations to provide for 3, 5 or 6 players, fans of the game virtually unanimously believe it should only be played with exactly 4.

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Files
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3 Taipan speelhulpje (NL)
Player aid in Dutch
2009-05-06
1 Ayudas para 4 jugadores
Ayudas para 4 jugadores. Inspirada en la excelente ayuda de Matthew Frederick. (Corregidos un par de detalles)
2009-05-05
3 Learnings From 9 Million Hands: Card Passing
Spreadsheet showing the historical rate of receiving 0, 1, 2 or 3 of each card (2-A) in the pass, given how many you were dealt. Mined from all bsw games. Unlike last spreadsheet, it's just a static table, so should be completely self-explanatory.
2009-04-27
5 Learnings From 9 Million Hands: Grand Calls
What can we learn from 9 million real hands of Tichu? It turns out quite a lot. This file provides a pivot table which gives a view into 800 combinations of starting 8 cards and tells you how often people call grand with each combination, and how often they succeed. Discussed here: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/3213030. Please keep the discussion there. But I should mention, as a quick instruction guide, that to use the pivot table, you simply click the plus/minus buttons to construct the starting hand you're interested in. You can drill down as little or as much as you want. If you don't drill down all the way to specify every field in the pivot, the fields not specified are simply rolled up (still independent). You can also reorder or take fields out of the pivot (or add dog or mahjong back in the pivot, since it's out by default after I realized it makes very little difference). The order of the fields is the order the boxes were checked on the right. So, for example, you can uncheck all the boxes (except the bottom 4, see below), and re-add the fields you care about, in the order you care about. An important note: NEVER uncheck any of the four last fields. They (and their order) are required to make the Win% and Call% columns work. If you ever accidentally uncheck any of those, simply close (without saving) and reopen.. History: 1.1: Added 2 new fields. 1: Number of queens. 2: Whether partner passed their highest card. Both are off by default. See above for how to add.
2009-03-06
1 Fanfold 2-3 players rules for Tichu
File contains variant rules to be able to play Tichu in a 2 or 3 hand format. It is assumed that you have good knowledge of the play mechanics before playing these variants. The 2-handed set play is highly recommended for couples due to its quick handed competitive play. For solo game variants and a discussion about this game's design click the following link: ([url=http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/381177]Tichu 2-3 Player Design[/url])
2009-02-12
0 Guan Rules
Two player variant of Tichu or perhaps this is the game Tichu is derived from. 2 is dragon. No phoenix. 1 card is based on lowest card then rank. No dog obviously. Only differences are triple straights and bombs you throw one extra card and scoring is different. Otherwise almost exactly the same as Tichu.
2008-12-01
3 Tichu Scoring Sheet
A compact yet thorough way of keeping track of Tichu and Grand Tichu calls by player, success or failure, 1-2 wins, and scores by round. A double-sided scoring sheet set up to record six fifteen-round games.
2008-11-03
33 Tichu Player Aid 4 up with scoring, V2
Full color player aid that fits in the AbacusSpiele box, one-sided, 4-up. Great for new players. Based on Matthew Frederick's aid, with scoring, passing conventions, etc. Let me know if the resolution is not good. I did a PDF from Photoshop. Version 2.0.
2008-03-12
3 Tichu - Guia Rápido de Regras em PORTUGUÊS
Quick rule guide in PORTUGUESE for Tichu (guia rápido de regras em PORTUGUÊS) - imprimir em frente e verso, cortar pelas linhas e dobrar em 4 - feito à medida da Edição Limitada (caixa metálica)
2007-09-16
4 TichuScorepad.pdf
Tichu Scorepad-prints 4 professionally-designed double-sided sheets on a single page - this is the scorepad the pro's use
2007-03-12
Statistics
User Rank: 37
Num Ratings: 2866
Average Rating: 7.73
Standard Deviation: 1.64
Num Views: 158943
GeekBuddy Analysis: Analyze
Similarly Rated: View
Avg. Game Weight: 2.4 moreinfo
Fans: 84
Personal Comments: 1178
Users Owning: 3762
Users Wanting: 157
Users Trading: 66
Has Parts For Trade: 1
Want Parts In Trade: 2
Price History: View
Total Plays: 26278
Plays This Month: 38
User Information
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