Thousand Variants — Lock, Barrel, Bomb and Tournament Rules

Every home plays Thousand a little differently, but the differences fall into two families of rules. In Poland people usually play with the lock (Polish blokada): from 800 points you score only a contract you have made yourself. In the family with the barrel (Polish beczka, Russian бочка) — described by pagat.com in the version played in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, and found on Russian-language online services — the score freezes from 880 points and the player has three deals to make a contract. Below is a comparison of the variants, with a source for each. Our game is Polish, so it uses the lock by default.

At a glance

• Two families of rules: the lock (from 800 only your own contract counts) and the barrel (from 880 the score freezes, and there are three tries).
• We found no official rulebook or federation of Thousand — not in Poland, nor in Ukraine or Russia.
• Several Polish municipal tournaments share the same, copied rulebook.
• The bomb and rospisat’ are the same decision — giving up the game after seeing the kitty (musik in Polish) — just with different numbers.
• Our game has two rule sets, PL house and PL tournament; both end the game with the lock.

The differences in one table

PL house and PL tournament are the rule sets in our game. The “PL tournament” column describes the rulebooks of the tournaments in Siedliszcze and Błaszki; the rulebook does not mention the bomb, four nines, a marriage in the first trick or the four-player game, so in those rows we show our own set. Kurnik is the rules page of the Polish online service kurnik.pl. Barrel means the rules from pagat.com (the version played in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine) and from CycloWiki, a Russian-language wiki. “—” means that the source does not say.

The limit of 120 plus the value of the marriages in hand is given by Polish Wikipedia, Kurnik and CycloWiki. The tournament rulebook and pagat.com say only that without a marriage you may not bid above 120 — more in the article bidding and the kitty.

House rules (PL house)

The PL house set is the house rules of our game — one of many home variants, not “the only true” rules:

• bidding from 100 in steps of 10, limit 120 plus the value of the marriages in hand;
• the kitty always shown to everyone;
• the bomb: the declarer gets 0, each opponent +60 (unless they already have 800 or more); each player has 3 bombs per game and may not throw them from 800 points;
• the duty to beat and the duty to trump when you have no card of the suit; no marriage in the first trick;
• four nines: the cards are reshuffled automatically;
• defending rounded to tens, 5 up (25 → 30);
• the lock from 800 with no capping (780 + 40 = 820), and a defender stops at 990;
• with four players the player sitting out gets the value of a marriage lying in the kitty.

Everything step by step: rules and scoring.

Tournament rules (PL tournament)

We found no federation of Thousand in Poland and no nationwide rulebook. The rulebooks of the municipal tournaments in Siedliszcze (2022) and Błaszki (2018) and of the Błaszki Thousand League 2023/2024 have the same text of the rules. Our PL tournament set is based on that rulebook:

• 3 players at the table; 7 cards dealt one at a time, 3 to the kitty;
• the forced 100, raises only by 10, without a marriage 120 at most;
• the kitty shown to everyone when the bidding reached 130;
• one card face down to each opponent, the contract no lower than the bid;
• you must follow suit and beat;
• defending rounded to tens: endings 1–5 down, 6–9 up (25 → 20);
• points from defending added only up to 800; the game ends when someone has 1000 or more.

The rulebook does not mention the bomb, the barrel, four nines or the four-player game. So in our set there is no bomb, you play four nines normally, the limit with a marriage is the same as in other sources (120 plus the marriages in hand), and you may not declare a marriage in the first trick.

The tournaments also differ in format. In the Błaszki League 8 rounds of 3 are played, and a place at the table earns 7, 3 or 1 point. The tournament in Skoroszów (2023) plays a completely different variant: 8 cards each, no kitty and no bidding, with a lock from 900, and a deal without a trick costs 120 points.

The lock from 800

The lock (blokada) is the Polish way of ending the game: a player who has 800 points or more before the deal scores only a contract they have made themselves, and defending gives them nothing any more. That is how Polish Wikipedia, Kurnik and the tournament rulebooks describe it. pagat.com, in its description of the Polish variant, gives a threshold of 900 and adds that the lock disappears when the player drops below 900.

The rules differ in what happens just below the threshold: under house rules defending counts in full (780 + 40 = 820), under the tournament rulebook it is capped at 800 — details in scoring. Some Polish sites also know a “barrel” as an option, but a different one from the one described below — for example rzutkrytyczny.pl: from 800 or 900, with a limited number of deals.

The barrel

On the barrel a player’s score freezes, and to finish the game they must make a contract as declarer. That is how pagat.com, CycloWiki, Ukrainian Wikipedia and the IgraFan and livegames services describe it:

• you usually go onto the barrel from 880 points (CycloWiki: by convention also 900); the score is set at 880, and defending does not count;
• you must make a contract of at least 120 (IgraFan and livegames: 121; CycloWiki: usually you play for 125);
• you have 3 deals to do it; whoever does not manage loses 120 points (pagat.com: drops to 760);
• whoever fails their own contract on the barrel subtracts the contract and leaves the barrel (pagat.com);
• you may not rospisat’ on the barrel (pagat.com, IgraFan, livegames).

Variants: whoever goes onto an occupied barrel pushes the previous player off it, and that player loses 120 (pagat.com, IgraFan, livegames); according to pagat.com, when two players go onto the barrel at once, both lose 120, and after three falls from the barrel the score drops to zero; according to Ukrainian Wikipedia, marriages do not count on the barrel.

In our game there is no barrel yet — both rule sets, PL house and PL tournament, end the game with the lock.

The bomb and rospisat’

The bomb is giving up the game after looking at the kitty, before the declarer passes cards: they do not play the deal, and the opponents get points. In the rules with the barrel the same decision is called rospisat’ (Russian роспись, Ukrainian розпис) and differs only in the numbers. In the table “—” means that the source does not say.

Other differences

Bidding step: 10 or 5

In Poland bids go up by 10 (tournament rulebooks, Kurnik, Polish Wikipedia). In the rules with the barrel by 5: 100, 105, 110… (pagat.com, CycloWiki, Ukrainian Wikipedia). The limit with a marriage is the same in both families: how high you may bid.

Rounding of defending

Rounding to fives, 17 gives 15, and 18 gives 20. The declarer is usually not rounded: they get or lose the whole contract.

The duty to beat

In the Polish rules you must beat if you can — play a higher card of the suit led (house rules, tournament rulebooks, Kurnik). In the rules with the barrel it is enough to follow suit, and a player with no card of the suit plays a trump (pagat.com, CycloWiki). When an opponent has trumped and you have only a lower trump, the Skoroszów rules make you play it and Polish Wikipedia does not; in our game you must play it.

A marriage in the first trick

Under house rules, in the rules with the barrel and on the IgraFan and livegames services you may not declare a marriage in the first trick. pagat.com, in its description of the Polish variant, allows declaring even in the first trick, and CycloWiki knows it as an option. The tournament rulebook and Kurnik do not say.

Four nines

According to Polish Wikipedia the holder of four nines may demand a redeal before the bidding — any call, even a pass, means giving up that right — and a player with a marriage has no such right. Kurnik also lets you ask for a redeal. In the rules with the barrel the holder may demand a redeal after the exchange of cards (pagat.com). Some sources also give a redeal for a very weak hand: CycloWiki with fewer than 13–15 points in the cards, IgraFan with fewer than 14 points in 8 cards.

In our game under house rules the cards are reshuffled automatically, under tournament rules you play those cards, and we add the right to demand a redeal as a rules option.

The values of the marriages

Hearts 100, diamonds 80, clubs 60 and spades 40 are given by pagat.com, CycloWiki and Polish and Ukrainian Wikipedia. According to German Wikipedia, in Austria spades are worth 60 and clubs 40. The old version of Polish Wikipedia (2011) gave, for Upper Silesia and Kraków, diamonds 40, hearts 60, spades 80 and clubs 100, and for Greater Poland diamonds 40, hearts 60, clubs 80 and spades 100 — we did not confirm that in other sources. The game 1001 has still other values (clubs 100, spades 80, hearts 60, diamonds 40), but it is a separate game. Where the standard values come from: marriages.

Rarer extras

The sources that describe the rules with the barrel also list extras that we did not find in Polish sources — pagat.com, in its description of the Polish variant, says outright that there is no penalty for zeros.

CycloWiki is a reader-edited wiki, and IgraFan and livegames describe the settings of their own services, so these are descriptions of customs, not regulations. We found no counter-doubling (kontra, the defenders doubling the stakes) in any of these sources.

Two and four players

Two players: on this site we describe the variant with bidding and two kitties of 2 cards — pagat.com calls it “Auction 1000” (rules for 2 players). Polish Wikipedia also describes a variant with 9 cards in hand and two kitties of 3 cards, and “draw” Thousand, in which the players start with 7 cards and draw during play. On Kurnik the points from the kitties go to whoever takes the last trick.

Four players: usually the dealer sits out; pagat.com also knows variants in which the player to the right of the dealer, or opposite them, sits out. Polish Wikipedia and Kurnik say of the player sitting out that they are “on the kitty” (na musiku; Kurnik: na musie), and CycloWiki calls them «сидящий на прикупе», literally “sitting on the kitty”. Polish Wikipedia also describes four-player play in pairs, with 5 cards. All four sources that give the points of the player sitting out (Polish Wikipedia, Kurnik, pagat.com and CycloWiki) give them something for the cards lying in the kitty; they differ in which:

More: rules for 4 players.

What we do not know

• Belarus and Kazakhstan: we found no descriptions of the rules of their own; pagat.com describes one version for Russia, Belarus and Ukraine.
• Ukrainian details — how many rospisat’ per game, whether bolts are counted in total or in a row, whether marriages count on the barrel — we know only from Ukrainian Wikipedia (whose article on Thousand itself notes that it has no footnotes) and pagat.com; we have not yet checked them with players.
• Tournaments outside Poland: the rulebook of the tournament in Repino (2008) can no longer be opened, and we found no other rulebooks from Russia or Ukraine.
• Kurnik does not say whether you may declare a marriage in the first trick.