Mendikot online
Win the tens with your partner. No trump until somebody cannot follow suit.
- Players
- 4 players
- Length
- 15–30 min
- Difficulty
- Medium
- Energy
- Calm, on your own screen
- On a video call
- Works well
- Type
- Cards · Partners
What playing it feels like
- A hand of cards you hold close, played fast against a table that is watching your count.
- Mostly quiet: the action happens on each player’s own screen, so it holds up on a video call.
- One round and everyone has it.
Good for
- Exactly 4 people
- A video call, since nobody has to be heard over anyone
Maybe skip when
- There are fewer than 4 of you
- More than 4 of you want to play at once
Mendikot — Mendhi Kot, Mindi, Mendicot — is a four-player partnership game from Maharashtra and Gujarat in which only one thing matters: the tens. Win the tricks that contain them and you win the deal, whatever else happens.
It is also one of the few trump games where the trump does not exist at the start. Nobody chooses it and nobody turns it up: the first time a player cannot follow suit, the card they throw away names the trump for the rest of the deal, and takes that trick. Whoever runs out of a suit first changes the whole hand.
The server deals all thirteen cards each, applies that trump rule in the right order and keeps a running count of the tens and tricks, so the only thing left to argue about is whether your partner should have led that king.
How to play Mendikot
- 1Create a room and share the 6-letter code. Mendikot is played by four players; partners sit opposite each other.
- 2All 52 cards are dealt, thirteen each. The player after the dealer leads, and everyone must follow suit if they can.
- 3There is no trump at first. The first player who cannot follow suit plays any card, and its suit becomes trump for the rest of the deal.
- 4Win tricks with tens in them. Three or four tens wins the deal; with two each, seven or more tricks wins. Four tens is a mendikot, all thirteen tricks a whitewash.
- 5A deal won scores 1 point, a mendikot 2 and a whitewash 3. The first side to the host's target wins.
Mendikot FAQ
What are mendis?
Mendis are the four tens. The side that captures three or four of them in its tricks wins the deal, which is why a trick with a ten in it is worth fighting for even when the cards are poor.
How is trump chosen?
It is not, until play starts. The first time a player cannot follow the suit led, the card they play sets the trump suit for that trick and the rest of the deal. This is the "cut hukum" version of the game.
What happens if the tens split two each?
Then the side that took seven or more of the thirteen tricks wins the deal.
What is a mendikot, and a whitewash?
A mendikot is capturing all four tens. A whitewash, sometimes called a 52-card mendikot, is taking all thirteen tricks. Both score extra here: 2 and 3 points against 1 for an ordinary win.
Who deals next?
If the dealer's side lost, the same player deals again, unless they lost a whitewash, when the deal passes to the dealer's partner. If the dealer's side won, the next player deals.
Is the match scoring official?
The rules for winning a deal are the traditional ones. Traditional Mendikot has no fixed match score, so the points per deal and the target are PartyDen's own, and the host can change the target.
Ready to play Mendikot?
Create a room, share the code, and start in seconds — free.
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