How to Play Marriage

Marriage is the Nepali rummy game played at every Dashain and Tihar table. Each player builds a hand of sets, the first to finish wins the round, and everyone settles up in maal (माल), the hand's points.

Players and cards

Marriage is played with three standard decks shuffled together, 156 cards. Every player is dealt 21 cards. Dealing and play go anticlockwise round the table, and the deal passes to the next seat each round. The rest of the cards form the draw pile, with one card turned up to start the discard pile.

On your turn, take the top card of the draw pile or the discard pile, then throw one card away.

Building your hand

The goal is to arrange all your cards into sets of three:

• Pure sequence: three cards in a row in the same suit, such as 5♥ 6♥ 7♥.
• Tunnela: three identical cards, same rank and suit, such as three 9♠. A tunnela counts as a pure set.
• Trial: three cards of the same rank in different suits.

Seeing the maal

Once you hold three pure sequences or tunnelas, show them on your turn. You are now seen (सिन), and you get to look at the joker for the round, the tiplu (टिप्लु). The joker and the cards related to it are worth maal and can stand in for missing cards:

• Tiplu: the joker card itself.
• Poplu and Jhiplu: the cards one rank above and one rank below the tiplu, in its suit.
• Alter: the same rank as the tiplu, in the other suit of the same colour.
• Marriage: jhiplu, tiplu and poplu held together, the game's namesake.

How much each of these is worth varies from table to table, so agree on it before you deal. A player who never shows stays unseen (अनसिन): they can't use the joker and pay more at the end of the round.

Dubli

Instead of sequences, a player can collect pairs of identical cards: seven dubli (डुब्ली) to see the maal. A Dubli player who doesn't win pays no Seen points. A Dubli winner collects extra points from every other player. Most tables play Dubli only with four or more players.

Winning a round

The round ends when a seen player arranges every card into sets and shows the full hand. That player is the winner. Then everyone counts their maal.

Foul and Murder

A foul (झेली) is a broken rule: a wrong show, playing out of turn, or holding the wrong number of cards. The player who fouls pays the Foul points to the winner only, not to every player. Some tables charge the foul in the same round. Others charge it in the next round.

Under Murder (मर्डर), only seen players' maal counts. An unseen player scores nothing that round, however good their cards.

Scoring a round

New to counting maal? How maal is calculated.

Each round is settled in two parts.

1. Maal. Every player is paid by every other player for the maal they hold. That works out to: your maal × the number of players − the total maal at the table.
2. Paying the winner. Every player then pays the winner. With the app's default rules that's 3 points from each seen player, 10 from each unseen player, 5 more from each player if the winner has Dubli, and 15 from anyone who fouled.

For example, four players with Murder on:

The total maal is 15, and the round adds up to zero. Points become money at the agreed rate, for example 10¢ a point.

Let the app do the sums

Marriage Score Keeper is free and works on any phone. Set the rules once, then each round tap the winner, who has seen, and any Dubli or Foul, and enter everyone's maal. It keeps the running totals and the seating order, and works out who pays whom when the night is over, in English or Nepali. Add it to your home screen and it works offline.