# Mendikot — win the tens

- From: Mendikot, a partnership card game of Gujarat and Maharashtra
- Players: 4 players in two teams
- Time: 15 min
- Made by: Traditional, western India
- This version: Open trump, and a match of first to 3 points

Made with boardgameBuilder 0.14.4. To design from it, open boardgameBuilder and choose Open game: its blocks go on the canvas, and the feelings are left for you to pick.

A trick-taking game where only the four tens matter. Partners sitting opposite try to capture tens in the tricks they win. Taking all four is a mendikot.

## What it shows a designer

Trick-taking with a single prize: the tens. It shows how a game can strip a big system down to one thing to fight over, and how partnerships form a silent conversation through the cards played.

## What you need

- one standard deck of cards
- paper for points

## How to play

1. **Deal.** Partners sit opposite. Before dealing, show a random card from the shuffled pack: its suit is trump. Put it back, shuffle, and deal all 52 cards, 13 to each player.
2. **A trick.** The player to the dealer's right leads any card; play goes anticlockwise. Each player must play a card of the suit led if they can; if not, any card.
3. **Who wins a trick.** The highest trump wins; if no trump was played, the highest card of the suit led. The winner takes the four cards and leads the next trick.
4. **Score the deal.** After 13 tricks, the team holding three or four tens wins the deal. If the tens split two and two, the team with seven or more tricks wins it.
5. **Mendikot.** Winning all four tens is a mendikot and scores 2 points; any other won deal scores 1. The first team to 3 points wins.

## After playing, talk about

- When did you play a ten, and when did you hold it back?
- How did you read what your partner held?
- Why might only the tens count?

## Where the rules are written down

- https://www.pagat.com/pointtrk/mendikot.html

## Its blocks

- Core mechanic: trick-taking
- Victory condition: most points
- Player interaction: team vs team
- Chance or skill: skill with luck
- Information visibility: hidden hands
- Timing: take turns

## Saved state

boardgameBuilder reads this part back when the file is opened.

```json
{"mechanics": {"core-mechanic": ["trick-taking"], "victory-condition": "most-points", "player-interaction": "team-vs-team", "chance-skill": "skill-with-luck-tempering", "information": "hidden-hands", "timing": ["take-turns"]}, "chosenFeelings": [], "previousMechanics": {}, "previousFeelings": [], "turnNumber": 0, "locked": false, "turnHistory": [], "answers": {}, "tests": {}}
```