Concealed-hand rummy · 3–8 players

Pife.

Also known as Pif Paf · Cacheta · Caixeta · Pontinho · Pife-pafe · Baralho · Fôrma · Pé Duro

Keep your combinations hidden. Draw one, discard one, and race to fit all nine cards into sets and suited runs.

Draw one card

Take the top discard, or try your luck with the stock.

Make three-card sets of different suits or suited runs of three or more.

Discard back to nine cards. A complete hand wins immediately.

YYou9 cards

01 How to play

Nine cards.
One complete hand.

Pife is a Brazilian rummy game for three to eight people. This table has you and three bots. The base version here uses two standard packs without Jokers, nine cards per player, and no scoring beyond rounds won.

Deal and direction

Shuffle two 52-card packs and deal nine cards to each player. Turn one card face up for the discard pile; the rest is the stock. Play passes anticlockwise, beginning with the player after the dealer.

Draw, then discard

On your turn, take the top card of the stock or the visible top card of the discard pile. You now hold ten cards. Discard one card face up to end your turn and return to nine.

Sets and runs

A set is three cards of the same rank in three different suits. A run is three or more consecutive cards of one suit. Duplicate cards from the two packs cannot repeat a rank inside one run. In this base version Ace is low: A-2-3 is valid, Q-K-A is not.

Keep combinations hidden

You do not lay down sets or runs during play. Keep all nine cards in your hand and rearrange your plan as new cards arrive. The other players see only your draws from the discard pile and the cards you discard.

Call Pife

After your discard, if every one of your nine cards belongs to a valid set or run, you win the round. The site checks this automatically and reveals the winning hand. A three-set hand is one way to win; other complete partitions are possible.

Empty stock

If the stock empties, this table shuffles the discarded cards back into stock, leaving the face-up top discard available. The source rules do not specify a single universal stock-recycling method, so this is the table rule used here.

02 History & variants

A Brazilian
rummy family.

Where Pife is played

Pife is widely associated with Brazil. Its precise origin is not well documented. The names Pif Paf, Cacheta, Caixeta, Pontinho and others are used in different circles, where local rules may differ. At this table the hidden nine-card hand defines the game.

Common house rules

Some groups add printed Jokers or nominate a wild rank by turning up a card after the deal. Others allow Q-K-A or K-A-2 suited runs, or allow a player who is one card short to claim an out-of-turn discard and win immediately. Those variants are described here for context; the playable base version uses natural cards, Ace-low runs and turns in order.