Seep online
Capture the floor with a partner: match and add cards, build houses, and sweep the table.
- Players
- 4 players
- Length
- 30–60 min
- Difficulty
- Hard
- Energy
- Calm, on your own screen
- On a video call
- Works well
- Type
- Cards · Capture
What playing it feels like
- A hand of cards you hold close, played fast against a table that is watching your count.
- Mostly quiet: the action happens on each player’s own screen, so it holds up on a video call.
- Worth a short rules run-through before round one.
Good for
- Exactly 4 people
- A proper evening rather than a filler
- A video call, since nobody has to be heard over anyone
Maybe skip when
- There are fewer than 4 of you
- More than 4 of you want to play at once
- You want to be playing inside a minute
Seep is the North Indian capture game: instead of winning tricks, you take cards off a floor in the middle of the table. Play a card, and you pick up any card of the same value, and any cards that add up to it — a jack takes a loose jack, or a 6 and a 5, or a 2, 3 and 6.
What makes it a game of planning and not just arithmetic is the house. You can pile cards into a house of nine to thirteen, which only a card of that value can take — and you have to keep a card in your hand to match it, so building one is a promise. Partners can cement a house so it cannot be broken; opponents can break it by raising it.
Clear the whole floor and you score a seep, fifty points in a single turn. The server enumerates every legal play for you and checks the one you pick, which matters, because the rules about houses are the part of Seep that people argue about.
How to play Seep
- 1Create a room and share the 6-letter code. Seep is played by four players; partners sit opposite each other.
- 2The player after the dealer bids 9 to 13, on a card they hold. The four floor cards are turned up and everyone is dealt 12.
- 3Play one card a turn. Match a card, or cards adding up to it, to pick them up; you must take whatever your card matches. The bidder opens with the bid value.
- 4Build a house of 9 to 13 over loose cards, and keep a card to match it. Anyone takes it with that value; cement it by adding a match, or raise another side's house.
- 5Spades score their value, other aces 1, the 10 of diamonds 6; a seep scores 50. A lead of 100 wins a baazi, and a side under 9 loses one.
Seep FAQ
What is a seep?
A seep, or sweep, is picking up every card on the floor in one turn. It scores 50 points, 25 if it is the bidder's very first turn, and nothing at all if it is the last turn of the deal.
What is a house?
A house is a pile of cards on the floor that adds up to 9, 10, 11, 12 or 13 and can only be taken as a whole, by a card of that value. You build one only if you hold a matching card, and you must keep that card until the house is taken or broken.
Do I have to capture when I can?
Yes. If the card you play is not used to build a house, you must pick up everything it can take. You can never leave a loose card, a set or a house on the floor that matches the card you played.
What is cementing and breaking?
Adding a card of a house's own value to it cements it, and a cemented house can never be broken. An ordinary house that is not yours can be broken by adding a card to raise its value, up to 13, which makes it yours.
How is a baazi won?
Each deal's two scores are subtracted and the difference builds up from deal to deal. A lead of 100 wins one baazi. A side that scores under 9 in a single deal loses the baazi immediately.
Why four players only?
The partnership game is the standard one and the one these rules are written for. There is a two-player version, but it plays differently and is not included.
Ready to play Seep?
Create a room, share the code, and start in seconds — free.
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