How to play Sheng Ji (升级)

One team is the house and holds the deal; the other is the guest, collecting points to take it away. Win, and you level up. That is the whole game — 升级 means "level up" — and everything below is how the hand gets there.

In classic play your partner sits opposite you. In 找朋友 the dealer calls friends — names a card, and whoever plays it is on their team — so until that card falls, nobody knows who is with whom.

Start here

• Only 5s, 10s and Kings are worth points. A 5 is worth 5. A 10 or a King is worth 10. No other card scores anything, Aces included. That makes 100 points a deck.
• One team is the house, the other the guest. The house holds the deal, and the hand is played at its level. The guest collects points to take the deal off it — 40 with one deck, 80 with two, 120 with three.
• Everyone is levelling up, 2 towards Ace. Hold the deal as the house, or take it as the guest, and your team levels up. In classic play partners share a level; in 找朋友 each seat keeps its own, because your team changes from hand to hand. The first past Ace wins the match.

Which card beats which

Trump is a fifth suit. It is not one of the four — it is built out of them, and it beats all three that are left over. Every hand has a trump rank and a trump suit. Say they are 2 and ♠. Then trump is: all of ♠, every 2 in the deck whatever its suit, and both jokers. What is left of ♥, ♦ and ♣ has no 2 in it.

Inside trump, this is the order, highest first. Worth a look before your first hand, because three of these cards are equal and that surprises everybody:

1. Big joker
2. Small joker
3. The trump rank in the trump suit — the 2♠
4. The trump rank in the other three suits — 2♥ 2♦ 2♣, all equal; whoever played first takes it
5. The trump suit, Ace down to 3

Inside an ordinary suit nothing is strange: Ace high down to 3, exactly as you would expect — minus the 2, which has left.

The one that catches people out: if ♥ is led and the only ♥ you hold is the 2♥, you are out of hearts. It is a trump now, and you are free to play anything.

How a hand goes

1. Pick your cards up one at a time. Nobody deals. Everyone takes a card in turn until the deck is nearly gone.

   While you draw, the trump suit is still open. Turn up a card of the trump rank and its suit becomes trump. With more than one deck, somebody holding two of the same card can overrule you, and a pair of jokers overrules everything — no suit is trump then, only the rank and the jokers. If nobody declares at all, the buried cards are turned over one at a time and the first one of the trump rank decides — or, failing that, the first card's suit.

2. The last few cards are buried. Six at four seats, eight at five: the dealer picks them up and puts the same number back face down. If the guest wins the final trick of the hand, those buried points count double for them.

3. Then you play, one card each, round and round. Someone leads. Going clockwise, everyone plays one card — and if you hold the suit that was led, you must play it.

   Highest card of the led suit takes all of them, along with any points in them. If somebody had none of that suit and played a trump instead, the trump takes it. Whoever wins leads next. That round of cards is a trick.

4. Count the points, and somebody levels up. Under the line and the house held: it levels up, and deals again. On the line or over and the deal changes hands: the guest levels up, and once more for every extra 20 a deck they took.

Pairs, tractors and throws

With more than one deck there are identical cards, and that opens the door to leading more than one at a time.

• A pair is two of the same card — the same rank and suit, so with two decks the 7♥ and the other 7♥. Lead a pair and everyone must follow with a pair of the led suit if they have one; if they don't, they play whatever they hold of that suit and fill the rest with anything.
• A tractor is two or more consecutive pairs in one suit — 7♥7♥ 8♥8♥. Two pairs beat two singles, and a longer tractor beats a shorter one, but the shape has to match: you can't beat a tractor with two loose pairs.
• A throw (甩牌) is leading several things at once — a pair and a single, say — and daring the table. It is only allowed if every piece of it would win on its own: the pair beats every other pair anyone holds in that suit, the single beats every other single. If any piece would lose, the throw is called, and you play only the piece that failed. The rest go back to your hand.
• Three and four decks make triples and quads, and tractors out of them, and the same shape-for-shape rule holds.

找朋友 — finding friends

Everything above applies. What changes is how the teams are found.

Calling. After burying, the dealer names one card per friend the table allows: one at four or five seats, two at six or seven, three at eight. A call names a card and a copy — "the second ♠A" — because with two decks there are two of them. You can't call a trump. And you may name a card you're holding yourself: that is a bluff, and if you end up playing it, that friend is simply lost.

Answering. Whoever plays the named copy of the named card joins the house from that moment on — the tricks they already took come with them, and the points move across the table. Until then they are a guest, and are shown and scored as one. A pair of a called card answers its first and second call in one play. If a friend is never found — the card is buried, or held to the end — the house just plays short.

Scoring is as it always was, with the teams as they stand when the last trick falls. The guest is every seat not in the house. Each seat carries its own level up, since who you were with this hand is not who you'll be with next.

At four seats there is one friend, so 找朋友 at four is two against two with a hidden partner.

The numbers

Light and Full both let the number of decks follow the number of seats; they differ in how generous they are about it. Light keeps the hands short — and gives four seats the single deck this game is named for:

Full is a deck for every two players, which is what most tables are used to — around 25 cards each however many of you there are:

At five and seven seats the two come out the same, so the choice only matters with an even number of players.

You can also pick the deck count yourself when you open the table, and then it stays put however many people sit down.

Words on screen

Trick — One round of play, a card from each seat. The best one takes them all.

Trump — The rank and suit that beat everything else this hand. Shown at the top of the screen.

House — The dealer's team, holding the deal. The hand is played at the dealer's level, and you level up by keeping the guest under the line.

Guest — Everyone else. You level up by taking the points, and you take the deal along with them.

Kitty (底牌) — The cards buried at the start of the hand. They pay double to a guest that wins the last trick.

Level — Where you have got to, 2 up to A. On hands you deal it is also the trump rank.

Levelling up — Winning a hand and moving up. It is what 升级 means, and it is the whole object of the game.