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How the odd colour joker works

The names play on lal, red, and kala, black. Look at the colours of your three cards. If two are red and one is black, the black card is your joker; if two are black and one is red, the red card is. The joker stands for whatever card makes your best hand, so a pair with a card of the other colour beside it is always a trail.

With your two cards of the same colour, the joker plays as in AK47: two cards that fit a run make the best run they can, two cards of one suit make a colour with the joker as the ace, and anything else becomes a pair of your higher card. Hearts and diamonds are both red but are different suits, so the King and Queen of hearts make a pure sequence with the joker, while the King of hearts and Queen of diamonds make a plain one.

Dead hands

Three cards of one colour have no odd card, and so no joker. That hand is dead. It loses to every hand that has a joker, and once you have seen it you must pack: folding is the only move left to you.

A blind player does not know what they hold, so a dead hand can stay in while its owner plays blind, and it even takes the pot if everyone else packs. At a show or a side show it always loses. Two dead hands are equal, and as ever the player who asked for the show loses on equal hands.

Lallan Kallan rankings

Best first, with how often each hand is dealt. Starred cards are jokers. Every live hand has exactly one joker, so there is no plain high card, and a dead hand ranks below everything.

Who wins? Worked examples

Each pair of hands below is compared by the Lallan Kallan rules. Starred cards in the pictures are jokers.

Betting, show and side show in Lallan Kallan

Nothing about the betting changes. Everyone posts the boot, blind players bet the stake and seen players twice the stake, and you can pack at any turn. A show is possible once two players are left, and a seen player can ask the previous seen player for a side show while three or more remain.

When hands are compared, the joker is played at its best and a joker hand is worth the same as the natural hand it makes. A dead hand loses to any live hand; two dead hands are equal, and on equal hands the player who asked for the show or side show loses.

Lallan Kallan at home

Families who play Lallan Kallan at Diwali often deal more cards, five, six or seven, and turn whole sets of two red cards and a black one (or two black and a red) into jokers, while a hand of one colour still has to pack. Our table deals the three-card game the rule sites describe, which plays at the speed of a normal Teen Patti hand.

Lallan Kallan tips

• Check the colours before anything else. Three of one colour means pack, however good the cards look.
• A pair with the odd colour beside it is a trail. Trails come about 3 hands in 100 and almost nothing beats them.
• Two cards of one suit and the odd colour make at least a colour, which beats about half of all hands.
• A pair made by the joker is a weak hand here: a pair of Nines beats fewer than a third of all hands.
• Playing blind is riskier than usual: one hand in four is dead, and you will not know until you look.

Where versions differ

Home tables also play a Lallan Kallan series with five to seven cards, where whole sets of two red cards and a black one become jokers. This table deals the three-card game the rule sites describe.

Lallan Kallan questions