Kachuful

Bid exactly the tricks you will take.

2 to 16 players
Bots fill empty seats
Trick-taking
Bidding
Strategy

Also called Oh Hell, Judgement, Judgment, Up and Down the River, Contract Whist, Nomination Whist, Blackout, Oh Pshaw, Oh Well and Kachufool.

Kachuful is the name Oh Hell goes by in India, and it’s also played as Judgement and Up and Down the River. Everyone bids exactly how many tricks they’ll take, and only an exact bid scores. Up to 16 can play at one table, each with their hand on their own phone, so it suits a big gathering.

Play now

Playing on Card Sard

Open cardsard.com on a TV, laptop or tablet and press Host.
Everyone else opens cardsard.com on their phone, presses Join, and types the room code or scans the QR code. There’s nothing to install.
Choose Kachuful and play: each hand on its own phone, the table on the big screen.

How to play Kachuful

Goal

Bid exactly how many tricks you’ll take in each hand, then take exactly that many: no more, no fewer. The highest total at the end wins.

The hands

The first hand is 1 card each, the next 2, then 3, up to the biggest hand: 7, or fewer if the deck runs short.
Trump changes every hand, in order: Spades, Diamonds, Clubs, Hearts, then round again. Any extra suits take their turn after Hearts.

Bidding

Starting with the player after the dealer, everyone bids how many tricks they’ll take, from 0 up to the number of cards in the hand.
The dealer bids last, and can’t bid the number that would make all the bids add up to the tricks in the hand. Someone always misses.

Playing a hand

The player after the dealer leads the first trick.
Follow the suit that was led if you can. If you can’t, play anything, including a trump.
The highest trump wins the trick, or the highest card of the suit led if no trump was played. The winner leads next.

Scoring

Take exactly your bid and you score 11 times your bid, and a made 0 scores 10: bids of 0, 1, 2 and 3 score 10, 11, 22 and 33.
Miss your bid, over or under, and you score nothing for the hand.
After the last hand, the highest total wins.

Variations

Picked in the lobby before the game starts.

Hand sizes: Up. Climbs from 1 card to the biggest hand. The host can also choose Up and down, which comes back down to 1, a match twice as long.
Made bid is worth: 11 × bid. Bids of 0, 1, 2 and 3 score 10, 11, 22 and 33. The host can also choose 10 + bid, which keeps scores closer: 10, 11, 12, 13.
Screw the dealer: On. The dealer can’t bid so that the bids add up to the tricks in the hand. Off, the dealer may bid anything, so everyone can make their bid.
Deck: 52 cards. The usual deck. On the Deck tab, the host can add suits (Stars, Moons, Crowns, Towers), add number cards past 10, shuffle more than one deck together or reorder the ranks.