Seep rules: how to play Seep, step by step

Seep, also called Sweep or Shiv, is a fishing card game from North India for four players in two teams. You play a card to pick up floor cards that add up to it, build houses, and race to lead by 100 points. This guide covers the standard 100-point partnership game.

By Keeda Studios, makers of the Seep app · Updated 27 October 2026 · हिंदी में पढ़ें

Players and card values

Seep is for four players in two teams of two. Partners sit opposite each other, and play goes counter-clockwise. Your team shares one pile of picked-up cards. Seep also works with two players (see Two-player Seep).

Use one standard 52-card deck without jokers. Each card has a value for picking up and building:

Where the 100 points are

Only 17 cards score. Together they are worth exactly 100 points in every deal:

A seep adds 50 bonus points on top. All other cards score nothing, but you still need them to make pick-ups, houses and seeps.

The deal and the bid

1. The player after the dealer is the bidder. The dealer gives the bidder 4 cards and puts 4 cards face down on the floor.
2. The bidder looks at their 4 cards and bids a value from 9 to 13 (9, 10, Jack, Queen or King). They must hold a card of that value. With no card of 9 or higher, the cards are dealt again.
3. The 4 floor cards turn face up.
4. The bidder makes the first play, and it must use the bid:
   • pick up floor cards that add up to the bid, with a card of the bid value, or
   • build a house of the bid value with any card (they still hold the bid card to take it later).
   • Only if neither is possible, they throw a card of the bid value to the floor.
5. The dealer deals the rest: the bidder gets 8 more cards and every other player gets 12. Everyone now has 12 cards dealt in this deal.
6. Play goes on with the player after the bidder.

Your turn: three kinds of play

On your turn you play exactly one card from your hand. You do one of these:

• Pick up floor cards that add up to your card's value.
• Build a house, or add to one (to break it or to lock it).
• Throw the card face up onto the floor. You may only throw a card that cannot pick up anything.

Picking up

Play a card and take every floor card or group of floor cards that adds up to its value. A single card of the same value counts as a group.

• Take every group of that value. You may not leave behind a loose card, a group or a house of your card's value.
• When groups overlap, you choose. Each floor card can be part of only one group.
• A card that can pick up may not be thrown. You can still use it to build or add to a house.
• The cards you pick up, and the card you played, go to your team's pile.

The seep (sweep)

If one pick-up clears every card on the floor, houses included, that is a seep. It is the move the game is named after.

After a seep the floor is empty, so the next player can only throw a card down.

Houses

Instead of picking up, you can put a card on loose floor cards so that together they add up to 9, 10, 11, 12 or 13. That pile is a house.

• You must hold another card of the house's value when you build it. You are the house's owner.
• Keep that card. While your house stands, your last card of its value may only be used to pick the house up.
• A house is taken as one. Only a card equal to its value picks it up, and it takes the whole pile. Any player with that card can do it.
• One house per value. If you build to a value that already has a house, your cards join that house and lock it.
• Loose floor cards that equal the house's value can join it too. That also locks it.

Building is how you protect cards and set up points. It also tells the table which card you hold, so the other team will try to break your house.

Breaking (raising) a house

An open house that you do not own can be broken: add one card from your hand to raise it to a new value, up to 13.

• You must hold a card of the new value. You become the owner.
• You may only raise with one hand card. Never with floor cards.
• You may never raise your own house, and nobody can raise a locked house.

Locking a house (pakka)

To lock a house, add a card equal to its value, or a card plus loose floor cards that make its value. A locked house, also called pakka or pakki, can never be raised. It stays until a card of its value picks it up.

• You must still hold another card of that value, unless your partner owns the house. Then your partner keeps the card for it.
• If you lock an opponent's house, you become a co-owner. You both must keep a card of its value.

End of a deal

• Play goes on until every card has been played.
• The team that made the last pick-up takes everything still on the floor, houses included. This is not a seep.
• Each team counts the points in its pile: spades, the 10♦ and the aces, plus 50 for each seep (25 for a first-play seep).

Winning the baazi

A full game of Seep is a baazi. It runs over several deals.

• After each deal, the difference between the two teams' points goes to a running score.
• The first team to lead by 100 points wins the baazi.
• A team that scores fewer than 9 points in one deal loses the baazi at once.

Who deals next

The deal stays with the team that is not winning. The same dealer deals again while their team is behind or level. When their team goes ahead, the deal passes to the next player. For a new baazi, the partner of the player who would have dealt next deals first.

Two-player Seep

The rules are the same, with no partners. The bid works the same way. After the bidder's first play, both players have 12 cards dealt. When both hands are empty, each player gets 12 more cards, and play goes on until the deck is used up.

Seep words

Floor

The face-up cards in the middle of the table.

Bid

The value from 9 to 13 that the bidder calls at the start of a deal.

Pick up

Play a card to take floor cards that add up to its value. Also called capturing.

Seep (sweep)

One pick-up that clears the whole floor. Worth 50 points.

House

A pile on the floor worth 9 to 13, picked up only as one, by a card of its value.

Open house (kachcha)

A house that someone else can still raise.

Locked house (pakka, pakki)

A house that nobody can raise any more.

Break (raise)

Add one hand card to an open house to change its value.

Baazi

A full game: deals continue until one team leads by 100 points.

Questions

Families often play their own house rules. This page describes the standard 100-point partnership game, as documented by pagat.com, and these are the rules the Seep app enforces.