Callbreak is a four-player card game played across Nepal, India and Bangladesh. Everyone plays for themselves. Spades are permanent trumps. Before a round starts you call how many tricks you will take, and you only get paid if you keep that promise.
A game is five rounds of thirteen tricks each. Make your call exactly and you score it. Take extra tricks and each one adds a tenth of a point. Fall short — even by one trick — and you lose the whole call, not the difference. That single rule is what makes the game tense.
It is the same game under many names. People write it Callbreak, Call Break or call brake. It is Call Bridge in India and Bangladesh, and लकड़ी / lakdi, ghochi, kathi or locha in different regions. Same 52 cards, same trumps, small drift in the house rules.
Keeping score by hand? Callbreak Score Tracker does the maths for all five rounds: works offline, no ads, no login.
The game at a glance
| Part of the game | Callbreak |
|---|---|
| Players | 4, each on their own score |
| Deck | Standard 52 cards, no jokers |
| Cards per player | 13, dealt one at a time |
| Trump suit | Spades, permanently |
| Card ranking | A, K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 |
| Direction of play | Counter-clockwise; the deal passes to the right |
| Game length | 5 rounds of 13 tricks |
| Winner | Highest total after the final round |
Five rounds is the Nepali and Indian standard. Pagat, the reference site for card game rules, describes Call Bridge with no fixed end in its base form, and lists five-deal and ten-deal games as alternatives. Most tables you sit at will play five and then argue about whether to play five more.
Dealing and calling
One player shuffles and deals all 52 cards, one at a time, so everyone ends with 13. The deal moves to the right for the next round.
Then every player calls a number of tricks. All four calls are made before a single card is played, so you are betting on your hand alone, not on how the play is going.
The minimum call is where sources split, and it matters:
| Ruleset | Minimum call | Maximum |
|---|---|---|
| Common Nepali and Indian play | 1 | 13 |
| Pagat's Call Bridge | 2 | 12 is the highest sensible call |
Neither is wrong. Ask before the first deal which one your table uses, because a player who thought 1 was allowed and gets told to call 2 has a different hand problem entirely. There is more on hand valuation in how to count your hand before you call and Callbreak bidding strategy.
Playing a trick
The player to the dealer's right leads the first trick. Everyone plays one card. Highest spade wins the trick; if no spade is played, the highest card of the led suit wins. The winner leads the next trick.
Callbreak is stricter than most trick-taking games about what you are allowed to play, and this is the part English-language pages get wrong most often:
- Follow the led suit if you can. And if you can beat the card that is currently winning, you must. Heading the trick is not optional.
- If you have none of the led suit, you must play a spade. If someone already trumped, you must play a higher spade if you hold one.
- Only when you can do neither of those may you throw away any card you like.
- There is no "spades must be broken" rule. You may lead a spade whenever you want, including to the very first trick.
One corollary saves a lot of arguments. If a spade is already on the table and you still hold the led suit, any card of that suit is legal. A heart cannot beat a spade, so the must-beat rule has nothing to bite on.
One sub-case is a table decision rather than a rule. If a spade is already winning and every spade in your hand is lower than it, some tables make you throw a losing trump anyway. Others let you play anything, on the grounds that a trump you cannot win with is wasted. Pagat records that leniency as a variation, so settle it before the deal.
Pagat's base description of Call Bridge is looser here: a player able to follow suit is not obliged to head the trick, and compulsory overtaking is listed as a variation. In Nepal and India that variation is simply how the game is played. The full breakdown, including what happens with voids, is in Callbreak rules when you cannot follow the suit.
Scoring
Scoring is three rules and nothing else.
| What happened | Round score |
|---|---|
| You won exactly your call | Your call, as a whole number |
| You won more than your call | Your call plus 0.1 for each extra trick |
| You won fewer than your call | Minus your whole call |
Call 4 and take 4, and you score 4.0. Call 4 and take 6, and you score 4.2. Call 4 and take 3, and you score −4. Not −1 for the trick you missed. The whole 4.
Some pages claim that missing a call of 4 with 2 tricks costs you −2. That is not the mainstream rule. If someone at your table insists on it, settle it before the deal rather than after the round. Callbreak scoring rules, explained works through more cases.
A worked round
Four players. The calls total 13, which is the neatest case to read:
| Player | Called | Tricks won | Round score |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bimal | 4 | 4 | +4.0 |
| Ashma | 3 | 2 | −3.0 |
| Tulsi | 3 | 2 | −3.0 |
| Hem | 3 | 5 | +3.2 |
Hem took two tricks past his call and got 0.2 for them. Ashma and Tulsi each missed by one trick and lost three points apiece. The tricks won always add to 13, so somebody's extra trick is somebody else's broken call.
A full five-round game
| Player | R1 | R2 | R3 | R4 | R5 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bimal | +4.0 | +3.0 | −5.0 | +3.0 | +4.1 | 9.1 |
| Ashma | −3.0 | +2.1 | +3.1 | +4.0 | −2.0 | 4.2 |
| Tulsi | −3.0 | −4.0 | +3.0 | +3.0 | +4.0 | 3.0 |
| Hem | +3.2 | +4.0 | +2.0 | +3.0 | +3.0 | 15.2 |
Hem wins, and look at how. His calls across the five rounds were 3, 4, 2, 3 and 3: fifteen tricks promised, and not one call broken. Bimal promised nineteen and broke one call in round three, and that single −5 cost him the game. Extra tricks are worth 0.1. A broken call is worth your whole bid. The arithmetic pushes you towards calling what you can actually win.
That is also why negative totals are common and not fatal. Tulsi was on −7 after two rounds and still finished on the board. Negative points in Callbreak covers how to climb back.
House rules you should agree on first
Different tables bolt on different extras. These are the common ones, all of them real regional variants:
| House rule | What it does |
|---|---|
| Minimum total call | If the four calls add up to less than 10, the cards are reshuffled and everyone calls again |
| Nine-call bonus | A call of 9 that is allowed to stand scores the call plus 0.1 and ends the round |
| Instant win on eight | Call 8 and take exactly 8, and you win the game outright |
| No leading spades to the first trick | A borrowed rule from other games; not standard Callbreak |
| Redeal on a spadeless hand | If a player is dealt no spades at all, the hand is thrown in |
| Announce a void before play | You must say which suits you are missing |
Pagat also records alternative scoring systems that change the game more than they look: one treats your call or one trick more as success; one gives calls of 8 or higher a flat 13 points, or 16 at some tables; one removes the value of extra tricks entirely and caps calls at 8.
Decide these before the first deal. The variations that cause arguments and common Callbreak rule arguments go through the ones that break up games.
Callbreak is not Spades
They look alike and play differently.
| Callbreak | Spades | |
|---|---|---|
| Teams | Individual, four scores | Partnerships, a shared team bid |
| Leading trumps | Allowed any time | Spades must be broken first |
| Extra tricks | Worth +0.1 each | Bags, and a penalty for collecting them |
| Nil bids | None | Yes |
| Must beat the winning card | Yes | No |
The must-beat and must-trump rules are the real gap. In Spades you choose when to spend a high card. In Callbreak the rules often choose for you. Callbreak vs Spades has the full comparison.
Common mistakes
Calling on high cards instead of shape. Three aces in three suits is three tricks at best. Six spades to the king is often more, because trumps keep winning after the aces are gone.
Forgetting that you must overtake. You plan to keep the ace of hearts for later, then a heart is led, a king appears, and the rules take the ace out of your hand anyway. Count that when you call.
Treating overtricks as profit. An extra trick pays 0.1. A broken call of 3 costs 3 — thirty overtricks. Spending an ace you still need for your own call, to win a trick you do not need, is the worst trade on the table.
Calling 1 to stay safe. Where 1 is allowed, it almost never breaks: extra tricks pay 0.1 each, so calling 1 and taking five still scores 1.4. The cost is not the risk, it is the ceiling. A 1.4 round loses to a table calling 3 and 4. Call low when the hand is genuinely weak, not out of habit.
Adding up by hand at 1 a.m. Rounds with 0.1s and negatives are where score sheets go wrong. I built Callbreak Score Tracker for exactly that: it applies these three rules for you, round by round, and the same scoring code runs whether you are tracking a real table or playing a game against bots on the app. If you would rather use paper, the Callbreak score sheet has a table you can copy.
Questions people ask
Is Callbreak the same as Call Bridge?
Yes. Call Bridge is the usual name in India and Bangladesh, and it is the name Pagat uses. The differences are house rules, not different games. See Callbreak vs Call Bridge.
What is the minimum call in Callbreak?
Most Nepali and Indian tables allow 1. Pagat's description of Call Bridge sets the minimum at 2. Both are played, so agree on it before the deal.
What happens if I take more tricks than I called?
You score your call plus 0.1 for each extra trick. Call 5 and take 7, and you score 5.2.
What happens if I take fewer?
You lose the whole call. Call 5 and take 4, and you score −5.
Can I lead a spade whenever I want?
Yes. Callbreak has no "spades must be broken" rule. You can lead a spade to the first trick.
Do I have to win a trick if I can?
In the Nepali and Indian ruleset, yes. If you can follow suit and beat the card that is winning, you must. If you cannot follow suit at all, you must trump, and overtrump if a spade is already down. Pagat's base rules make this optional and list it as a variation.
How many rounds are in one game?
Five is the standard in Nepal and India. Some groups keep going and add rounds; Pagat's base description has no fixed end.
Is लकड़ी or ghochi a different game?
No. Those are local names for Callbreak. Tash or ताश just means playing cards in general, not this game. The many names of Callbreak lists them by region.
Download it: Callbreak Score Tracker for iPhone and Android. Free, and the link picks the right store for you.
