Question 1

How do you play Kabish?

Accepted Answer

Four players in two partnerships, sitting opposite their partner. Four cards go face up on the floor and everyone gets twelve. On your turn you play exactly one card: it either captures cards from the floor whose values add up to it, joins cards into a "house" you will collect later, or simply sits there. The object is not tricks — it is points, and only seventeen cards carry any.

Question 2

Is this free? Do I need an account?

Accepted Answer

Free, no account, no download. You play with a bot partner against two bot opponents, entirely in your browser.

Question 3

What else is this game called?

Accepted Answer

Kabishi. Seep and Sweep are the same word — the game is named for the move where you take everything on the floor at once. Kaali Teeri means "black three", after the suit that carries almost all the points.

Question 4

Which cards are worth points?

Accepted Answer

Only seventeen of the fifty-two. Every spade is worth its own value, ace through king, which is 91 points. The other three aces are worth one each. The ten of diamonds is worth six. Everything else is worth nothing at all, so a hand full of high hearts is a hand full of nothing.

Question 5

Why does the deck add up to exactly 100?

Accepted Answer

91 in spades, 3 for the off-suit aces, and 6 for the ten of diamonds. That is the whole scoring table and it is deliberately exact — you always know how many points are left, because the two teams always split 100 between them. Note that many sites list the ten of diamonds as 2 points; that is wrong, and it makes the deck total 96.

Question 6

What is a house?

Accepted Answer

A pile on the floor that can only be taken as a single unit, with a value from 9 to 13. You make one by playing a card onto loose cards so the whole pile adds up to that value — a five and a four make a nine-house. Nobody can pick off part of it; they either take the lot with a matching card or leave it.

Question 7

What does it mean to cement a house?

Accepted Answer

A cemented house holds more than one copy of its value — a nine-house holding both a nine and a five-plus-four. Once cemented it can never be broken, only captured. This is the single most important distinction in the game: an ordinary house is a liability an opponent can steal, a cemented one is money in the bank.

Question 8

Can somebody take my house?

Accepted Answer

Yes, if they hold its value. That is why building one is a commitment rather than a free move. If it is not cemented they can also break it — add a card that raises it to a new value, which makes it theirs.

Question 9

Why can I not play some of my cards?

Accepted Answer

In this version you can play almost anything, because houses are not tied to one player. Cards are dimmed only when they genuinely have no legal use.

Question 10

What is a sweep, and what is it worth?

Accepted Answer

Taking every last thing off the floor in one play. It is worth 50 points, which is half the deck, and it is the biggest single swing in the game. There are two exceptions: clearing the four opening cards on the very first play is worth 25, and a sweep with the last card of the deal is worth nothing, because the floor was coming to you anyway.

Question 11

How does the bidding work?

Accepted Answer

The player to the dealer’s right sees four cards and must name a number from 9 to 13 that they actually hold. That is a promise to make a house of that value on their first play. If they have nothing above an eight the hand is thrown in and re-dealt.

Question 12

What should I bid?

Accepted Answer

The value you hold twice, if you have one. A house you can cement immediately is the strongest possible opening, because it becomes untouchable and the opponents have to watch it. Otherwise bid low — a nine is far easier to build from a random floor than a king.

Question 13

Do I have to capture if I can?

Accepted Answer

Yes, and this catches people out. If the card you play matches anything on the floor — a single card, a set adding up to it, or a house — you take all of it. You cannot play a nine "just to get rid of it" while a nine sits there. The only way to avoid capturing is to use the card in a house instead.

Question 14

What happens to cards left on the floor at the end?

Accepted Answer

They go to whichever team captured last. That makes the final few plays worth thinking about, because a fat floor and a well-timed capture can decide the deal on its own.

Question 15

How is the deal scored?

Accepted Answer

Each team counts the points in the cards it took and adds any sweep bonuses. The difference between the two totals carries forward. Reach a difference of 100 and you win a baazi and the running total resets.

Question 16

What happens if my team scores under 9?

Accepted Answer

You lose a baazi outright, whatever the score was before, and everything resets. It is the game’s way of saying that taking almost nothing is not a bad deal, it is a disaster — and it is why you should take a small, ugly capture rather than nothing at all.

Question 17

Can I change how hard the opponents are?

Accepted Answer

Yes — Easy, Medium and Hard, above the table, and it takes effect on their next turn without restarting. It changes the opponents only: your partner always plays the same competent game, because making your partner incompetent does not make Seep easier, it makes it unwinnable. Measured over 400 deals a level, a player of roughly medium standard wins about 60% against Easy, 47% against Medium and 39% against Hard.

Question 18

What actually changes between the levels?

Accepted Answer

Not the amount of thinking — none of them search ahead — but what they understand. Easy does not price a capture in points, so it takes whatever is biggest; it ignores the partnership, so it will cement and break its own side's houses; and it sometimes plays a card for no reason. Medium reasons about points and partnership but misjudges. Hard also checks what a card hands the next player before throwing it, and knows that the last capture of a deal takes whatever is left on the floor.

Question 19

How good is my partner?

Accepted Answer

Competent and, more importantly, aware that you exist. It will not break a house your side built, it will cement your houses to protect them, and it treats points you take as points it has taken. A partner that plays its own hand well and fights you is worse than a bad one — which is why the difficulty setting does not touch it.

Question 20

Do the bots cheat?

Accepted Answer

No. They see their own hand and the floor, exactly as you do. They do not count the cards that have gone, which a strong human player absolutely does — a bot that never forgets would beat almost everyone almost every deal, and losing to that is not fun.

Question 21

Why does the game highlight cards for me?

Accepted Answer

Because Seep is the only card game here where the legal moves are invisible. In solitaire you can see that a red six goes on a black seven. Here, whether your nine does anything depends on every combination of the floor that adds to nine, and staring at the cards does not tell you. Doing that arithmetic for you is the game being playable, not a hint.

Question 22

Can I play on a phone?

Accepted Answer

Yes, and the floor is what the layout is built around. Loose cards wrap into a grid rather than a single row, houses are drawn as labelled stacks so it is obvious they come as a unit, and your twelve cards live in their own scroller under your thumb.

Question 23

Can I replay the same deal?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Every game has a number and the same number always deals the same cards, including any re-deals the bidding rule forced. Hand someone the link and see who does better with identical hands.

Question 24

What is the difference between the versions here?

Accepted Answer

Seep — The full partnership game — bid a house, defend it, and take the spades. Seep Match — Three baazis to win. Long enough that one unlucky deal is not the game. Kabish — Looser houses — either partner may take one, so nobody is tied to a card. All three are the same engine with different settings.

Question 25

Where does Seep come from?

Accepted Answer

North India, and it belongs to the worldwide family of "fishing" games that includes the Italian Scopa and the Turkish Pişti. What makes Seep its own game is the house: most fishing games only let you capture, while this one lets you build something on the table and defend it.