Bai cao

Bài cào or bài 3 cây (which means "3 cards") is a Vietnamese card game, played with a standard 52-card deck.

Playstyle

This game can mainly be played by 2 playstyles: "Cào rùa" (or "Cào dùa") and "Cào cái".

"Cào rùa": player with highest point win all.

Any player can be the dealer. Each player bet an equal amount of money, player with most point win all the betted money. In case there are 2 or more player with the same highest point, the betted amount of money with be split equal between those player; or those player can play a sub-game in which the player with highest point will win the money.

"Cào cái": rule similiar to BlackJack.

Choose a player to be nhà cái (the "dealer"), remaining player is called nhà con ("player"). Since its have the same rule as BlackJack, the player only need to compare their point with the dealer.

Rule

Each player will be deal 3 cards. Player can hide they cards till end game or reveal it immediately.

Number of player

This game can be played with 2+ player or more (as long as each player can be deal 3 cards).

Point System

- With numbered cards {A, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10} : the number on the card is their point.

- With non-numbered cards {J, Q, K}: each card equal 10 points.

A player final point is the number at "Unit column" after summed up all point in 3 cards. Ex: The sum of 3 cards = 27 points → 7 is player's final points.

Strongest hand (called "ba cào") is hand consist of 3 non-numbered cards. Ex: {J, Q, K}, {J, J, K}, {J, Q, Q},...

Weakest hand is 10 point ("busted" called bù).

In this game card's type does not count (♥, ♦, ♣, ♠) . Ex: {♥3, ♣4, ♠2} is equal to {♦3, ♠4, ♣2}.

Other playstyles

Vietnam's southerner call this game as "bài cào" while northerner called its as "ba cây".

Northerner's playstyle had 1 different in the rule which is the number of cards allowed to use in-game:

Uses only numbered cards (36 cards in total)
With Southern's playstyle, 10 points is busted (bù) meanwhile in Northern's playstyle 10 is the highest points. Addition Note: The sum of 3 cards = 20 points → 10 is player's final points.

When there are 2 or more player with the same highest point: card ♦ > ♥ > ♣ > ♠. Note: ♦A is highest card, while ♥A, ♣A và ♠A count as weaker cards.

Ex:

{♠A, ♣7, ♦2} is higher than {♥3, ♣4, ♠3}, both hands equal in point but the 1st hand had ♦ so its count as stronger.
{♦A, ♣3, ♥6} is higher than {♠2, ♣2, ♦6} because ♦A > ♦6.

References

https://vi.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%A0i_c%C3%A0o

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