अंदर बाहर कैसे खेलें

How to play Andar Bahar◈

One card in the middle, two piles, and the round ends the moment a rank matches.

The four steps

1. Turn the centre card. One card face up in the middle. Its rank is the target.
2. Pick a side — Andar or Bahar, before dealing starts. This is your only decision.
3. Deal alternately. One card at a time to each pile in turn, starting with the side the centre card's colour indicates.
4. Stop on a match. The first pile to receive the matching rank wins.

There is no step five. No further decisions, no second phase.

Why the colour rule matters

The side dealt to first gets one extra opportunity to hit the matching rank. That is a real, if small, advantage.

But it moves. Because red and black are equally likely, the advantage sits with Andar half the time and Bahar the other half — so across many rounds neither side is favoured. Within any single round, one of them is.

This is the single most misreported rule about the game. Plenty of sources claim Andar always receives the first card and therefore always has the edge. See the full Andar Bahar rules.

How long a round runs

The round ends on the first card matching the centre rank. Three matching cards remain in a 51-card deck, so on average around twenty-five cards are dealt.

The average hides the range. The very first card can match and end the round instantly; it can also run most of the deck. Neither is unusual.

Names it is played under

Andar means inside and Bahar means outside. The game is Katti in Karnataka and Mangatha or Ullae Veliyae in Tamil Nadu — and Ullae Veliyae translates the same way, inside and outside.

There is no strategy

Stated plainly because it matters: your only action is choosing a side before the deal. Nothing after that is a choice.

For a card game where decisions change the result, read Call Break or Indian Rummy instead.

Common questions

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