We simulated 1.7 million Thulla rounds: what the numbers show
Thulla is a game of tracking and nerve, but how much of it is skill, how long does a game really last, and how does it usually end? We do not have to guess. Thulla Champions has a real rules engine, and bots that play full games on it, so we let them play 1.7 million rounds and counted.
How we ran it
- The engine is the real one. It is the same code that runs every online match on our server, including the Hand Call, the shootout and the draw rule.
- The players are the real bots. Easy plays any legal card. Medium leads a safe suit and plays low when following. Hard counts cards, tracks who is out of which suit and plans the endgame. How each one thinks has the details.
- 17 tables, 100,000 rounds each. Every deal comes from a reproducible shuffle, so anybody running the same program gets the same numbers.
- Date: 2026-11-08. The margin of error on a percentage near 25% is about ±0.3 points.
How games end
With four Hard bots, 71.8% of games end in a shootout: two players are left, they share no suit, and the result is already settled. A draw (everyone plays their last card in the same trick) happens in about 0.03% of games, about once in 3,000. The other games run to a normal finish.
The shootout is much rarer when the players are not as sharp: with four Easy bots it ends 29.7% of games, and with four Medium bots 44.0%.
How long does a game last?
| Players | Tricks per game | Thullas per game | Cards in an average pile |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | 21.8 | 4.8 | 2.7 |
| 4 | 22.0 | 7.7 | 2.9 |
| 5 | 23.3 | 9.9 | 3.1 |
| 6 | 25.2 | 12.3 | 3.2 |
All Hard bots. A game is between 22 and 25 tricks whatever the table size, but more players means more thullas: with more people it is more likely that somebody is out of the suit that was led. Two-player games are different: the Hard bots averaged 0.0 thullas per game (the table rounds it) over 100,000 games, and every one of those games ended in a shootout.
How much is skill worth?
This is the table that surprised us most. One bot sits at a four-player table with three opponents of another strength, 100,000 games each. If it were all luck, every player would lose 25% of the time.
| One … | against three … | Loses | Each opponent loses |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hard | Easy | 1.0% | 33.0% |
| Hard | Medium | 2.0% | 32.7% |
| Medium | Easy | 12.1% | 29.3% |
| Easy | Hard | 80.3% | 6.6% |
| Hard | Hard | 25.1% | 24.9% |
| Medium | Medium | 25.3% | 24.9% |
| Easy | Easy | 25.1% | 25.0% |
- Equal players really are equal: three tables of identical bots lose 25% each, within the margin of error.
- A Hard player at a table of Easy players is the Bhabhi in only about 1 game in 100. Against Medium players it is 2 in 100.
- An Easy player at a table of three Hard players loses four games in five.
- Medium sits in between: it loses about 12% of games against Easy opponents.
So Thulla is not a game where the cards decide everything. The deal gives a lucky or unlucky hand, but over a hundred games the player who tracks suits and plans the ending almost never ends up last.
What this means for you
- Track the suits. The difference between Easy and Hard is mostly counting cards and remembering who is out of what. See the strategy tips for how.
- Know the ending. Most games end in a shootout, so the last two players decide it. Learn it on the shootout page.
- Do not blame the deal after one game. Even a perfect player loses sometimes; the table shows it takes a hundred games for skill to show.
- Your seat matters a little. The player with the Ace of Spades loses more often than the others: see the odds of being the Bhabhi.
Run it yourself
The program is in the project as engine/CardGame.Engine.Sim. It plays rounds from deals that come from the shuffle seeds label:0, label:1 and so on, so a result can be checked. We keep the raw output with the date it was run.
More: odds of being the Bhabhi · how the bots think · try the bots yourself
Frequently asked questions
How were the Thulla rounds simulated?
We ran whole rounds on the same rules engine the game server uses, with the same bots, from reproducible shuffles. Each table was 100,000 rounds, 17 tables in all.
Does luck or skill decide Thulla?
Both. Against equal players everyone loses 25% of four-player games. But a strong player against three weak ones loses about 1 game in 100, so skill matters a great deal over many games.
How long is a game of Thulla?
About 22 tricks at a four-player table with strong players, with around 8 thullas, and each thulla hands someone about 3 cards.
Are the results about real players?
No. They describe the bots. People play differently, so use the numbers as a map of how the rules behave rather than as a prediction for your own table.
More guides
How to play Thulla (Bhabhi)
The full rules, step by step.
A Thulla round, trick by trick
A worked example: a clean trick, a thulla, and how a round ends.
Thulla, Bhabhi or Bhabi? The names and every term
The names of the game, where house rules differ, and every word explained.
Thulla strategy tips
Habits that keep you from being the Bhabhi.