Compared to other card games, Chắn is quite difficult and needs to start with memorizing the cards, followed by learning how to quickly arrange Chắn cards before understanding the basic rules of the game.

New players especially need to learn playing Chắn for rewards from the basics, and below are the rules for correctly and quickly arranging the cards that you need to know.

Structure of the Chắn card deck

Chắn cards are adapted from the traditional “Tổ Tôm” type. This game, to be precise, is a “simplified” version of Tổ Tôm.

Although it has been simplified a lot, it is still “super difficult” compared to the usual 52-card Western decks, especially since the characters on the cards are not in common Vietnamese.

Basically, the Chắn deck is also a Tổ Tôm deck reduced by 20 cards, including the Nhất set: Nhất Vạn – Nhất Sách – Nhất Văn and Lão, Thang, so there are only 100 even cards left.

how to arrange Chắn cards

Each card has 2 parts, the character part and the number part: the left side is the number part, and the right side is the character (which can be considered as the suit of that card).

The number part has 8 numbers from Nhị to Cửu (2 to 9), and the character part (suit of the card) has three types: Sách / Vạn / Văn. Combined, they create cards like: Nhị Văn, Nhất Vạn, Tam Sách…

Each Chắn card will have 4 identical cards, such as: 4 Nhất Sách cards, 4 Tứ Văn cards… combined to create 96 regular cards + 4 Chi Chi cards, making a total of 100 even cards.

Only when you have memorized these rules can you move on to the next part, which is arranging the cards correctly.

#4 How to quickly arrange Chắn cards

Learning how to arrange cards is to help players avoid mistakenly drawing the wrong card, have a reasonable strategy, and this is necessary.

By mastering the following theories, you will not only memorize the cards quickly but also be able to arrange them correctly, without confusion, and make the most accurate moves.

1/ Understand the purpose of playing Chắn

The purpose of playing Chắn is to discard the Què cards, also known as junk cards, to have 19 cards in hand + the newly drawn card to form 10 Chắn or 10 Chắn + Cạ, with at least 6 Chắn or more.

Thus, you will see that Chắn has a gameplay quite similar to the Tứ Sắc or Phỏm games currently.

Even if you are new, if you are familiar with the two games above, you should not face many difficulties when playing Chắn. You can download the offline Chắn game for your computer to experience it first.

2/ Know the linking sets in Chắn cards

The goal of Chắn cards is to have Chắn and Cạ, so the first thing when arranging is to know what these linking sets are.

Chắn: Consists of 2 identical cards in both rank and suit. For example, 2 Nhị Sách or two Bát văn is one Chắn.
Cạ: Is 2 cards that are the same in rank but different in suit. For example: Tam Văn – Tam Vạn is one Cạ.
Ba đầu: Is three different cards in suit but the same in rank. For example: Thất Văn – Thất Vạn – Thất Sách.
Què: Are the cards that, after being arranged, will be left out. Players will use them to play or draw additional cards of the same type to form Chắn or Cạ. In Phỏm terms, these are the leftover cards.

quickly arrange Chắn cards

3/ Determine priorities to help arrange Chắn cards quickly

In arranging Chắn cards, players will prioritize in the following order:

Chắn arranged first: Chắn (like in Phỏm) is the set that determines whether you can win or not. Therefore, you need to arrange Chắn first, and while playing, absolutely do not discard cards that have already formed Chắn.
Cạ: Is the second priority in arranging Chắn cards. However, there may be cases where you have to play Cạ to obtain Chắn.
Ba đầu: Is the third priority, and you must play one card or draw one more card to create Chắn & Cạ. However, you need to be careful in choosing which card to play to avoid being taken by others.
Què: Is the last priority to play or draw into.

Once you have arranged Chắn, keep it separate, and then arrange Cạ. You also need to count how many Chắn you have to see if you should break Cạ to obtain Chắn or not. It is advisable to understand the complete way to declare winning to arrange Chắn faster.

4/ Clearly understand the cases of winning in Chắn cards

In Chắn cards, pay attention to the two forms of winning to prioritize arranging the cards correctly:

Wide win: Each playing area will have a fixed 19 cards, and any additional draws or pulls from the deck must discard one card to always have 19 cards in hand.
A wide win occurs when you have 6 Chắn + 3 Cạ in hand + 1 leftover card waiting to win. On your next turn, if you draw a card from the deck that can be combined with Chắn or Cạ, you will win. Having 6 Chắn in hand is called a Wide Win.
Single win: Also a win with 6 Chắn and 4 Cạ, but you only have 5 Chắn in hand. The last card you draw + Què forms Chắn to win, which is called a Single Win.

Tip: You can try downloading the offline Chắn game for iPhone to know all the winning cases. Guaranteed, once you are familiar, your sensitivity will increase over time.

Note on how to arrange Chắn cards quickly

The method of quickly arranging Chắn cards needs to pay attention to how to draw and play the leftover cards. The regulations are as follows:

Priority 1: Priority to eat to form a Chắn.
Priority 2: If you have 1 Chắn in hand, it is strictly forbidden to play both cards in that Chắn set.
Priority 3 – Giving up eating Chắn: If you have given up 1 card in the Chắn, the player is not allowed to eat that card again. The card the player has eaten in the Chì door cannot be given up in the following rounds.
Priority 4 – Eating to choose a cạ: If you already have a cạ of a certain row in hand, you can eat to create a Chắn but cannot eat to create a cạ anymore.
Priority 5 – Eating and playing cạ: If you have eaten to create a cạ, you are not allowed to play both cards in the cạ. If you have played 1 of the 2 cards of the cạ, in the next turn you can only eat to create a Chắn and cannot eat cạ.
Priority 6 – Prohibiting eating cạ while waiting: If there is 1 card waiting, you can only eat Chắn and not eat cạ.