UnderTen and its card game cousins

The idea of trying to hold the lowest hand is old, and many card games are built around it. If you already know one of them, you will feel at home in UnderTen. If UnderTen is your first, these are good games to try next.

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A word of warning before we start: most of these games are passed on at kitchen tables rather than printed in rule books, so the details change from family to family. We describe the way they are commonly played. Your group may play a little differently, and that is part of their charm.

Yaniv

Yaniv is the closest relative. It is especially popular in Israel and among backpackers, who carry it around the world.

What is the same. Players hold a small hand, draw and discard each turn, and try to get their total low enough to call. When someone calls, everyone shows their hand, and the caller can be caught out by a player with an equal or lower hand. Scores add up over many rounds and a high score knocks you out.

What is different.

• Yaniv usually starts with fewer cards, often 5, and the call is usually made at 7 points or less rather than 9.
• Yaniv lets you throw runs of the same suit, such as 4, 5, 6 of hearts, as well as sets. UnderTen only allows sets of the same rank, so there are fewer combinations to look for.
• Many Yaniv tables use jokers worth 0. UnderTen has no jokers.
• Yaniv often has special scoring touches, such as a score cut in half when it lands exactly on a round number. UnderTen keeps one rule: a failed declare adds 20.
• Yaniv has no turn limit. UnderTen ends a round after 12 turns each, so a big table never stalls.

Play Yaniv if you like more combinations and house rules. Play UnderTen if you want something you can teach a new player in a minute.

Dhumbal

Dhumbal is a cousin from South Asia, played in a similar draw, throw and call style. If you have played it with family, the flow of an UnderTen round will be familiar: shed your high cards, keep your low ones, and pick your moment.

Golf

Golf is a classic low-score game with a very different feel. Each player has a small grid of face-down cards in front of them, often four or six, and only gets to peek at some of them. On each turn you draw and swap a card into your grid, trying to replace high cards with low ones. Matching cards in a column often cancel out. A full game is nine "holes", and the lowest total over all of them wins.

Compared with UnderTen: Golf is about memory, because most of your cards are hidden even from you. UnderTen hands are always fully visible to their owner, so it is about choices and timing rather than remembering. Both reward getting rid of picture cards quickly.

Cabo

Cabo is a newer, published game that mixes Golf-style hidden cards with special powers. Some cards let you peek at your own cards, look at an opponent's card or swap cards with someone. When you think you are lowest, you call "Cabo" and everyone else gets one last turn.

Compared with UnderTen: Cabo adds memory and bluffing. UnderTen keeps everything a player needs in their own hand, and the only hidden information is the other players' hands. In UnderTen there is no last turn after a declare: hands are revealed straight away.

Gin Rummy

Gin Rummy is a two-player game where you build melds: sets of the same rank and runs in the same suit. Cards that are not in a meld are called deadwood. In the most common version, you can knock and end the hand once your deadwood adds up to 10 or less.

Compared with UnderTen: the threshold is similar, but in Gin Rummy your matched cards are kept and counted as safe, while in UnderTen matched cards are thrown away. Gin Rummy takes longer to learn and to play. UnderTen works for up to six players and a round takes a few minutes.

At a glance

Why we made UnderTen this way

We wanted a game you could explain to anyone in one minute and play on a phone with friends in another city. That led to three choices. One number to remember: under 10. One kind of combination: cards of the same rank. And one clock: 12 turns each, so a round never drags. Everything else is up to how you play. Read the full rules, or start a game now.