The rules of Thousand can be learned in one evening. Beginners lose most of their points on a few recurring slips with the rules and with counting; below are the most common ones and how to avoid them. A box marked “Tip” is advice from experience and calculation, not a rule from a source: the rules are on the pages rules and variants.
The six most common mistakes
- The ten outranks the king. The order in a suit is ace, ten, king, queen, jack, nine. Anyone who knows other games plays the king over the ten and gives up the trick.
- Bidding above 120 without a marriage. Without a pair in hand you may not exceed 120, because that is what the cards of the whole deal are worth. With a marriage the limit rises by its value: the table of limits.
- Declaring a marriage in the first trick. You may not: in the first trick the declarer must play an ordinary card. A marriage is declared only when you lead after taking a trick.
- Not following suit and not beating. In Thousand you must follow suit and beat with a higher card if you can. With no card of the suit you must play a trump, if you have one. A mistake here usually ends with losing the trick, and at a real table also with an argument.
- Forgetting that a marriage changes the trump at once. A declared marriage sets the trump already in that same trick, and the next marriage changes it to its own suit.
- A contract lower than the bid. After taking the kitty (musik in Polish) you may raise the contract, but not lower it below what you bid.
How to count your hand before bidding
- Aces and tens are 84 of the 120 points. Eight cards out of 24 carry 70% of the value of the deck, so you count them first. Nines give nothing.
- A marriage counts when you will be able to declare it. For that you must first take a trick (other than the first). A hand with an ace and a king-queen pair is worth more than a hand with the pair alone.
- Check what is missing for the pair. If you hold the king of hearts without the queen, the chance that the queen is in the kitty is 3 in 17, that is 17.6%. More on this: bidding and the kitty.
- The kitty averages 15 points in cards and contains an ace in 43.7% of cases: count on it with care.
When bidding
- A pass is final: whoever passes comes back only in the next deal. If in doubt, it is better to pass early than to overpay.
- In homes that know the bomb, a weak kitty is not a drama: you may give up, and the opponents get 60 each. Do not overuse it: under house rules each player has only three per game, and the bots in our simulations throw on average 5.3 per game with three players (they play more simply than humans). The rules of the bomb: variants.
- Four nines happen once in 304 hands: when you have them, check whether your rules give a right to a redeal (variants).
During play
- Remember what has been played. There are only four aces and four tens. Whoever counts which have already gone knows whether their king is safe.
- You declare a marriage by leading the king or the queen of the pair, so you first need a trick, for example one taken with an ace. The suit of the marriage becomes the trump, and a new trump can weaken your cards in other suits.
- Keep track of who has already declared. The trump changes with every marriage, and the values (hearts 100, diamonds 80, clubs 60, spades 40) help judge whether it is worth trumping.
Near the end of the game
- Remember the threshold. Under house rules from 800 points defending stops counting, so you can reach 1000 only by winning the bidding; under the tournament rulebook the defenders’ points are capped at 800 (scoring).
- Watch the score sheet. Plus or minus the contract for the declarer, points rounded to tens for the defenders: it is easy to start an argument over the score. A sample score sheet helps.
- Near 1000 a failed contract hurts most: it subtracts the whole contract from the score you have been building the whole game.
How to practise
You learn fastest by playing against bots: the app blocks moves that break the rules and shows the marriage panel at all times, so after a dozen deals you stop making mistakes. See also the glossary if any word is new to you.