Cat Te Rules: How to Play Cát Tê, the Vietnamese Six-Card Game

Cát Tê — also written cắt tê, cạc tê or sắc tê, and often just called bài 6 lá, “six-card game” — is a trick-taking game played with an ordinary 52-card deck. Each player gets six cards. What sets it apart is the goal: you do not need to win the most tricks, and you do not need to get rid of your cards as in Tiến Lên. The winner is whoever takes the last trick. The first four tricks mostly decide who is still allowed to compete for it.

This guide covers the deck and card order, how a trick works, the elimination rule after trick four, the two ways to win, the optional special hands, and the odds behind them.

Deck, players and the deal

• Deck: a standard 52-card deck, jokers removed.
• Deal: six cards each. The cards left over are set aside and not used in that hand.
• Players: English rule write-ups give 3 to 6 players, and some apps let two play. Four to six is the most common table. Agree it before the first deal.

Card order and suits

From highest to lowest: A – K – Q – J – 10 – 9 – 8 – 7 – 6 – 5 – 4 – 3 – 2. The ace is the highest card and the 2 the lowest — the opposite of Tiến Lên, where the 2 is the strongest card.

There is no trump suit. No suit beats another; only the suit of the card that leads a trick counts in that trick.

How a trick is played

A hand has at most six tricks, and in each trick every player plays one card:

1. The leader plays any card face up. That card sets the suit for the trick.
2. To compete, each following player must play a card of the same suit and higher than the highest card on the table, face up.
3. A player who cannot or does not want to compete plays a card face down. A face-down card is thrown away: it cannot win the trick, whatever its value.
4. The highest card of the led suit wins the trick, and its player leads the next one.

Because folding a card face down is always allowed, Cát Tê involves real decisions, unlike pure-chance games such as Bài Cào. You keep choosing between spending a strong card to stay in control and throwing a weak one away to save the strong card for later.

The elimination rule after trick four

This is the most important rule in the game, and the one most often misunderstood. When the first four tricks are over, any player who has not won a single trick is out and does not play tricks five and six.

Since the winner is whoever takes the last trick, and only players with at least one of the first four tricks reach it, you cannot win a hand without taking at least one of the first four tricks. The early tricks score nothing, but they are your ticket to the end. That is why folding again and again to “save good cards for the finish” is a common mistake: strong cards are no use once you have been knocked out after trick four.

Two ways to win a hand

1. Win all of the first four tricks. The hand ends at once.
2. Win the sixth trick, the last one. This is how most hands are won.

In other words, winning more tricks does not by itself win the hand. A player who takes the first three tricks still loses if the last one goes to someone who won only one trick before it.

Special hands: a table rule

Many tables add hands that win immediately when they are dealt. The two that rule descriptions mention consistently are:

• Tứ quý — four cards of the same rank among your six.
• Đồng hoa — all six cards in one suit.

Both are optional rules, not part of the core game. Some Vietnamese sources add a hand where all six cards are below 6, but sources disagree on it. Agree before the deal whether special hands are used, and which ones.

Cát Tê odds: what six cards usually look like

A 52-card deck gives 20,358,520 different six-card hands. Counting them exactly:

The special hands are rare enough that most players go years between them. The last row matters more in practice: in more than half of all deals you hold no card at all in at least one suit, so whenever that suit is led you can only fold. That is a big part of why leading the right suit, at the right moment, decides so many hands.

Stakes and settling up

Cát Tê has no points system like Phỏm. The winner of the hand takes the stakes put in for it. The starting stake, any bonuses, and what happens on a tie are all house rules that vary by table and by app.

Cát Tê compared with other Vietnamese card games

• Unlike Tiến Lên and Sâm Lốc: the goal is the last trick, not emptying your hand.
• Unlike Phỏm: no melds and no points.
• Unlike Bài Cào and Liêng: hands are not compared once at a showdown; the game runs over several tricks.
• Closest to Bài Tấn in that players take turns beating each other’s cards — but Bài Tấn has a trump suit and Cát Tê does not.

See all the Vietnamese card games in one place.

Can you play Cát Tê at an online casino?

Cát Tê is a home game, not a casino game, so you will not find it in the lobbies of the online casinos we list. The card games they do carry are baccarat, blackjack, poker and a handful of Asian three-card games. 22bet’s casino lobby has three versions of Bài Cào from King Midas Games plus live Teen Patti tables, and 20Bet’s live casino lists Three Card Poker and Teen Patti. If you play for real money, set a budget first.

Play responsibly

Cát Tê is often played for money, and like any form of betting it carries a real risk of losing it. Only play with money you can afford to lose, set limits before you sit down, and never chase losses. For adults 18 and over only.