How to Play Teen Patti — Rules, Hand Rankings & Variants

Teen Patti is the game the rest of the catalogue is built around. Three cards each, a shared pot, and a betting structure that rewards judgement — unlike Andar Bahar or Dragon vs Tiger, this one has genuine decisions in it.

Everything below covers standard Teen Patti first, then the five variants you will meet in the apps.

The rules step by stepThe rules, step by step

Everyone posts the boot. The boot is the minimum stake, and it forms the starting pot before any cards are dealt.
Three cards are dealt face down to each player.
Play moves clockwise. On your turn you are either blind or seen:
- Blind — you have not looked at your cards. You stake the current amount, or double it.
- Seen — you have looked. You must stake at least twice the current amount, or four times to raise.
The discount for playing blind is the core tension of the game.
You can fold (pack) at any turn, losing whatever you have already put in.
A show ends the hand. When two players remain, either can pay for a show. Cards are compared and the better hand takes the pot.
The pot limit ends it early. Most tables cap the pot. When the cap is reached, everyone still in shows immediately.

Hand rankings with the real oddsHand rankings, with the real odds

There are exactly 22,100 possible three-card hands. Here is how they divide:

Rank	Hand	What it is	Combinations	Chance
1	Trail	Three of a kind	52	0.24%
2	Pure Sequence	Run, same suit	48	0.22%
3	Sequence	Run, mixed suits	720	3.26%
4	Color	Same suit, no run	1,096	4.96%
5	Pair	Two of a rank	3,744	16.94%
6	High Card	None of the above	16,440	74.39%

Two things in that table are worth sitting with.

A pure sequence is rarer than a trail — 48 against 52 — yet it ranks below it. That is a quirk of the game's history, not an error, and it means the second-best hand is genuinely harder to make than the best one.

Three hands in four are nothing at all. High card covers 74.39% of deals. If it feels like you are folding constantly, the maths says you should be.

For an interactive version of this table with tie-breaking rules, see the hand ranking chart.

Sequence order the rule people get wrongSequence order — the rule people get wrong

A-K-Q is the highest run. A-2-3 is the second highest, ahead of K-Q-J. The lowest is 4-3-2.

In most card games the ace is either high or low. Teen Patti lets it be both, at the top and immediately below the top. More pots are lost to this than to any other rule in the game.

The five variantsThe five variants

Each of these changes one thing and leaves the rest of the game intact.

Muflis lowballMuflis (Lowball)

The ranking is reversed. The worst hand wins. High card beats a pair, a pair beats a color, and a trail — normally unbeatable — becomes the weakest holding at the table.

Everything else is unchanged. The difficulty is that years of instinct now point the wrong way, and most players misread a strong hand as a good one for at least a few rounds.

Ak47AK47

Every ace, king, four and seven is wild and can stand in for any card. That is sixteen wild cards in the deck.

The effect is dramatic: strong hands become routine. A trail that would normally win almost every pot is now common enough to be beaten regularly. Hand values inflate across the board, so the practical skill is recalibrating what "good" means.

JokerJoker

The dealer reveals one card at random and every card of that rank becomes wild — four wilds, against AK47's sixteen.

Mechanically it is the same idea with a gentler effect. Hands improve, but not so much that normal judgement stops working. It is the most approachable of the wild-card variants.

HukamHukam

One suit is nominated as trump for the hand. Cards of that suit gain value, which shifts hand comparisons without changing the ranking table itself.

Implementations vary more than the other variants — check the specific table's rules before committing money.

Pot blindPot Blind

All players stay blind for a fixed number of rounds. Nobody may look at their cards until the round limit passes.

It removes information from the early game entirely and turns those rounds into pure pot-building. Once the limit lifts, normal play resumes with a much larger pot already on the table.

What actually mattersWhat actually matters

Teen Patti is the only game in this catalogue where your decisions change the result. The three that matter most: fold the 74% of hands that are nothing, play blind while the pot is small and seen once it is large, and remember that A-2-3 beats K-Q-J.

Payouts and true odds

Every bet available, what it pays, and how often it actually wins. Odds are for standard rules — an individual app may vary, so check its table before you stake.

Bet	Pays	Wins	Note
Trail / Trio	Highest hand	0.24%	Three of a kind. A-A-A is the best hand in the game
Pure Sequence	2nd	0.22%	Three consecutive cards, same suit. A-K-Q highest, then A-2-3
Sequence	3rd	3.26%	Three consecutive cards, mixed suits
Color	4th	4.96%	Three of the same suit, not in sequence
Pair	5th	16.94%	Two of the same rank. Third card breaks a tie
High Card	Lowest	74.39%	Nothing at all — and three hands in four

How often each result happens

High Card74.4%
16,440 of 22,100 hands. Three in every four
Pair16.9%
3,744 hands
Color (flush)5.0%
1,096 hands
Sequence (run)3.3%
720 hands
Trail (three of a kind)0.24%
52 hands — 1 in 425
Pure Sequence (straight flush)0.22%
48 hands — rarer than a trail, but ranked below it

Strategy

Play blind early, not late

A blind player stakes half what a seen player does. Early in a hand, when the pot is small and nobody has much information, that discount is genuinely good value. Once the pot has grown and players are committing real money, the information is worth more than the discount — look at your cards.

Three in four hands are nothing

74.39% of hands are high card. If you only continue with made hands you will fold most of the time, and that is correct. The most common expensive mistake in Teen Patti is treating a decent high card as though it were a hand.

A-2-3 is the second-best run, not the worst

In most card games the ace is high or low. In Teen Patti, A-K-Q is the top sequence and A-2-3 sits immediately below it, ahead of K-Q-J. The lowest run is 4-3-2. More pots are lost to this rule than to any other.

A pure sequence is rarer than a trail but ranks lower

There are 52 trails and only 48 pure sequences, so the pure sequence is genuinely the rarer hand — yet it ranks second. This is a historical quirk of the game rather than a mistake, and it is worth knowing before you over-value one.

The pot limit is the real constraint

Most tables cap the pot. Once it is reached the remaining players show down immediately. Knowing where that cap sits changes how you bet a strong hand: there is a point beyond which building the pot is no longer possible, and slow-playing past it wastes the hand.

Common questions

What beats what in Teen Patti?

From strongest to weakest: Trail (three of a kind), Pure Sequence, Sequence, Color, Pair, High Card. Note that a pure sequence is rarer than a trail but still ranks below it.

Is A-2-3 the lowest sequence in Teen Patti?

No — it is the second highest, behind only A-K-Q and ahead of K-Q-J. The lowest sequence is 4-3-2. This is the single most commonly misunderstood rule in the game.

What is the difference between blind and seen?

A blind player bets without looking at their cards and stakes half the amount a seen player must. A seen player has looked and must bet at least twice the current stake. Blind play is cheaper; seen play is better informed.

What is Muflis in Teen Patti?

Muflis, or lowball, reverses the entire ranking. The worst hand wins, so a high card beats a trail. Everything else about the game is unchanged.

How does AK47 work?

All aces, kings, fours and sevens act as jokers and can stand in for any card. Sixteen wild cards in the deck makes strong hands far more common, so a hand that would normally win often is not enough.

How many possible Teen Patti hands are there?

22,100 — the number of ways to choose 3 cards from 52. Of those, 16,440 are high card and only 52 are trails.