Teen Patti Variations Rules: How AK47, Joker, Muflis and 999 Decide the Winner

A Teen Patti variation is the same game with one judging rule changed. The deal (three cards each), the boot and the blind or seen betting stay as they are in Classic. The winner is still the best hand left at the show. What a variation changes is how "best" is measured.

This guide covers only what each variation changes and how to judge a hand in it. The base rules, betting, sideshow and strategy are in our Teen Patti rules and strategy guide, so they are not repeated here.

Hand-Ranking Recap (Classic)

Every variation below, except 999, uses this Classic order as its reference point. From highest to lowest: Trail (three of a kind) → Pure Sequence (straight flush) → Sequence (straight) → Color (flush) → Pair → High Card. A higher category always beats a lower one. Within a category, you compare card ranks, and Aces are high.

One detail matters later: a sequence cannot "wrap around" the Ace, so 2-A-K is not a sequence. A-2-3 is. For probabilities, blind betting and the show, see the hand rankings section of our rules guide.

Teen Patti Variations at a Glance

These are the variations we could confirm from published rules pages (Octro, TeenPatti Royale, pagat.com, Wikipedia). The last column shows which source gives each rule.

Names such as Hukam, Banco, Bust, Potluck and Dynamite also appear in app menus, but we found no published rule set we could confirm for them. Treat them as app-specific and read that table's rules screen.

Wild-Card Variations: AK47, Joker, Lowest and Highest Joker, Hi-Lo

In every wild-card variation, a wild card (called a "joker", though no printed joker is used) becomes any card you choose. You turn your wilds into whatever gives the best hand, then compare hands on the normal ranking. Two wilds always make a Trail, because they copy your third card. One wild always makes at least a Pair.

AK47

Every Ace, King, 4 and 7, of all four suits, is wild. That is 16 wild cards in the deck, and they stay wild for everyone all game. TeenPatti Royale's example turns A♠-K♦-4♠ into A-A-A.

Take our example hand, K♠ 7♥ 2♣. The K♠ and 7♥ are both wild, so they copy the 2♣ and the hand becomes a Trail of 2s. That is the lowest Trail, and in AK47 about one hand in four is a Trail.

Joker

After the cards are dealt, the dealer draws one card from the rest of the deck. The other three cards of that rank become wild for everyone. If the drawn card is A♠, then A♣, A♦ and A♥ are the jokers (Octro).

Suppose the drawn card is the 7♦. Our K♠ 7♥ 2♣ now has one wild, the 7♥. K and 2 cannot form a sequence (2-A-K is not valid) or a Color (different suits), so the best hand is a Pair of Kings (K-K-2).

Lowest Joker and Highest Joker

Here the wild card is personal. In Lowest Joker, your own lowest card is wild. If your two lowest cards are a pair, both are wild. Aces count high when you decide which card is lowest. Octro's example turns A♠-K♥-K♣ into A-A-A (both Kings are the lowest cards) and A♠-K♠-2♥ into A♠-K♠-Q♠. Highest Joker uses your highest card instead. We found it only in Wikipedia's description ("high wild"), not on an app's rules page.

With K♠ 7♥ 2♣, Lowest Joker makes the 2♣ wild, giving a Pair of Kings (K-K-7). Highest Joker makes the K♠ wild, giving a Pair of 7s (7-7-2). Nobody ends up with a plain High Card in these two variants.

Hi-Lo

Octro and TeenPatti Royale both describe Hi-Lo: your lowest and your highest cards are both wild. Every hand then has at least two wilds, so every hand is a Trail, and the winner is simply the higher Trail. K♠ 7♥ 2♣ becomes 7-7-7.

Muflis: The Lowest Hand Wins

Muflis uses the Classic deal and betting, but the ranking is reversed, so the weakest hand wins. Octro's example: K♣-2♦-3♣ beats K♥-K♦-9♣, because a High Card is below a Pair. A Trail, the best hand in Classic, is the worst in Muflis.

Between two High Card hands, compare the highest cards first, and the lower one wins. Wikipedia's example is A-Q-3 against A-K-2: A-K-2 wins in Classic, but A-Q-3 wins in Muflis because its second card (Q) is lower than K. The best Muflis hand is 5-3-2 in mixed suits. 4-3-2 would be a Sequence, and three cards of one suit would be a Color, so both would rank higher.

Still, a King-high hand is only a middling Muflis hand. Any lower High Card, such as 9-5-3, beats it. Our count of all 22,100 possible hands found that 9,960 of them (about 45%) would beat K-7-2 in Muflis.

999: Hands Scored as a Number

In 999, you ignore the hand categories and read your three cards as a number. Octro's rules give the card values: Ace = 1, 2 to 9 = face value, and 10, J, Q, K = 0. You arrange the three digits to make the number closest to 999, and that number is your hand. Because no hand can go above 999, the best arrangement is always the digits from highest to lowest.

Octro's own example: A-K-9 reads as 9-1-0 = 910, which beats A-A-A (111) and 8-8-8 (888). The perfect hand is 9-9-9. Suits, pairs and sequences count for nothing.

Formats That Keep the Classic Ranking

These variations change the stakes or the cards dealt, not the way hands are judged. You compare hands exactly as in Classic.

• 4X Boot is Classic with a starting boot four times the normal amount (Octro, Royale). The cards and ranking are unchanged. Only the cost of each hand goes up.
• Faceoff deals from only the 10s, Jacks, Queens, Kings and Aces (Octro, Royale). That is 20 cards, so pairs and Trails are much more common than in a full deck. The ranking is the same.
• Best of Four deals four cards, and you keep your best three (Wikipedia). With four cards, 32.4% of hands hold at least two cards of the same rank, against 17.2% with three (Pair or Trail), so expect stronger hands at the show.
• Pot Blind (TeenPatti Royale only, so app-specific): everyone bets without seeing their cards, there is no sideshow, and the bet doubles each round.

How Wild Cards Change the Odds

Wild cards push most hands up the ranking. In AK47 a Trail comes up about 100 times as often as in Classic. We checked all 22,100 three-card hands with a script and gave each hand the best category its wild cards allow.

Share of hands in each category. Classic, AK47 and Lowest/Highest Joker cover all 22,100 hands. The Joker column also covers each of the 49 possible drawn cards (22,100 × 49 = 1,082,900 cases), with the drawn card's three partners wild, as in Octro's rule. Hi-Lo is not shown because every hand is a Trail.

Assumptions: a wild card can be any rank and suit; each hand takes the best category it can reach; A-2-3 is a sequence and 2-A-K is not; all copies of the lowest (or highest) rank are wild. The figures only count categories, so they hold under any tie rule.

For example, 5,780 of the 22,100 hands (26.15%) are a Trail in AK47, against 52 (0.24%) in Classic. Some guides give higher figures for Joker (around 2.8% Trails). Those assume all four cards of a rank are wild, which is not how Octro's draw-a-card rule works.

How to Judge a Hand in Any Variation

The same five steps work at any variation table, from sitting down to the show.

Worked Example: One Hand Under Eight Rules

The same cards can be the worst hand at one table and the best at the next. Here Hand A (K♠ 7♥ 2♣) plays Hand B (9♦ 9♣ 4♠) heads-up under each variation. In Joker, the drawn card is the 7♦.

Why these results are correct. In AK47, Hand A's two wilds can only copy the 2♣ (Trail of 2s), while B's one wild copies a 9 (Trail of 9s). In Highest Joker, both of B's 9s are wild, so they copy the 4♠. In Hi-Lo, all three of B's cards are wild, which gives A-A-A. In 999, Hand A is 279 short of 999 and Hand B only 5.

Incorrect Example: "My Natural Trail Beats Your Joker Trail"

The most common mistake at wild-card tables is to think a natural hand outranks the same hand made with jokers. In the rules we checked, it does not. Here is a new deal at the same two-player AK47 table.

• Player 1: Q♠ Q♥ Q♦, a natural Trail of Queens (Queens are not wild in AK47).
• Player 2: A♣ 7♦ K♥. All three cards are wild, so this is A-A-A.

The wrong reading: Player 1 raises confidently and asks for the show, thinking a "real" Trail beats one made of jokers.

The correct reading: both hands are Trails, so compare ranks. A-A-A beats Q-Q-Q, and Player 2 wins. Octro's and Royale's examples treat joker-made hands as the hands they form ("A-Joker-Joker which will make strongest hand as A-A-A"). A Joker Teen Patti rules page we checked says the same: a natural hand does not automatically beat a joker hand of the same rank.

How to fix it: after Step 3, read your hand as plain ranks ("Q-Q-Q") and forget where it came from. Exact ties go to the table's show rule. Some home games agree to favour natural hands, but that is a house rule, not the default.

Common Mistakes and App Differences

Most mistakes come from carrying a Classic habit to a table where a rule has changed.

• Counting the drawn Joker card as wild for you. In Octro's Joker rule, the drawn card is taken out of play and only the other three cards of its rank are wild.
• Making a sequence from K-A-2. Wild cards cannot fix 2-A-K, because it is not a sequence under any rule we checked.
• Missing an accidental Color or Sequence in Muflis. 4-3-2 looks low, but it is a Sequence, which is a poor Muflis hand.
• Treating a Pair as strong in AK47 or Lowest Joker. About 30% of AK47 hands and 36% of Lowest Joker hands are exactly a Pair, and many more are higher.

Where apps and regions differ:

• What "Joker" means. Octro and Wikipedia make a whole rank wild (three cards). TeenPatti Royale makes a whole suit wild, which is 13 cards. By our count that raises Trails from 1.96% to 15.73%.
• Sequence order. pagat.com ranks A-2-3 as the highest sequence, then A-K-Q. Wikipedia puts A-K-Q first, then A-2-3. Check which your table uses.
• Exact ties. pagat.com gives the pot to the player who did not pay for the show. Wikipedia says the pot is split at a show. Octro's Hi-Lo rules say the player who shows first loses.

Checklist and Next Step

Before your first hand at any variation table, check:

• I have read this table's rules screen.
• I know which cards are wild, and whether they are shared (AK47, Joker) or personal (Lowest, Highest Joker, Hi-Lo).
• I know whether this table ranks normally, reversed (Muflis) or by number (999).
• I know whether A-2-3 or A-K-Q is the top sequence here.
• I know how an exact tie at the show is settled.
• I will judge my hand by its plain ranks, not by whether it is natural or joker-made.

Come Game's library includes Teen Patti and Rummy; Call Break, Ludo and Carrom are not part of it. We have not confirmed which Teen Patti variations the Come Game app currently offers, so check the tables listed in the app. If you are new to the game, begin with the Teen Patti rules and strategy guide. You can also compare formats on the games page or read which game to play first.

Real-money Teen Patti is for adults 18 and over, and is restricted in Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Odisha, Telangana, Nagaland and Sikkim. Set a budget before you play. See our responsible gaming page for limits and support.

Sources

1. Octro Teen Patti: Learn Variations (Joker, Muflis, AK47, 4X Boot, Lowest Joker, 999, Faceoff, Hi-Lo)
2. TeenPatti Royale help centre: Variations (suit-based Joker, AK47, Hi-Low, Low-Joker, Faceoff, Pot Blind)
3. pagat.com: Teen Patti (hand ranking, A-2-3 sequence, tie at the show)
4. Wikipedia: Teen patti (lowball example, wild draw, low wild, high wild, best of four, sequence order)
5. Teen Patti Boss: Joker Teen Patti rules (natural vs joker hands of the same rank)

Frequently Asked Questions