Thinlin is a game, not a country, despite what people say or ask when you may be playing.  It is a fairly simple game that needs to be promoted a little bit.  All you need is two to eight players and one to two decks of playing cards.

The history of the game dates back to...well nobody really cares what the history is, they just want to know how to play.  So on with the rules.

The dealer of the first game is selected by drawing cards.  The player with the lowest card deals first.  Subsequent hands are dealt by the player who comes in last place in the previous hand.  The dealer will deal seventeen cards to each player, unless your group is playing with four people and one deck or seven or eight players and two decks, in which case the dealer deals thirteen cards each. 

With double deck play, it is necessaty to color or highlight the numbers from one deck in order to determine the higher suits.  (This creates the effect of eight suits, and the game is played with the exact same rules.)

There are three ways to win this game. The most common is to get rid of all your cards first.  The easiest is to be dealt all four twos, in cases of double deck games, unfortunately that would make all eight twos.  And the third way is to beat the four twos with a very large breaker(which will be explained later). 

The order is simple, the cards rise from Three to Ace numerically, but the Two is higher than all others.  There is also a suit rank, it is Spades being the lowest, then Clubs, next is Diamonds, and finally comes Hearts as the highest.  Simple enough?  This means that the Three of Spades is the lowest and the Two of Hearts is highest. 

The first play in the first game is made by the player with the lowest card(Three of Spades).  All following games the first play is made by the winner of the previous game.  The first play must contain the low three.  It may be a single card, a pair, a triple, a straight containing three or more cards, it can even be a suit straight, which is a straight with all cards being in the same suit.  The next player is to the left of the first person.  He or she must play the same type of cards, wether it be a single, pair, etc., but the second player's highest card must be higher than that of the first.  Make sense?  This means that if the first player plays a pair of threes, the Spade and the Heart, the second player may not play the other pair of threes, but may play any other pair.  This continues until every player passes because he or she does not have higher cards or does not want to play them.  When everyone passes, the person who threw the last card is now able to play anything in his or her hand. 

Twos are special not retarded.  If you are dealt all four, you automatically win, with an execption to come.  A Two is played just like any other card, and can be beaten by any other card or something called a breaker(information to come).  A Two may be played in a straight or suit straight only as the lowest card, it may NOT be played over an Ace in a straight.  Aces can only be played high on straights.  If someone plays the Ace of Hearts in a straight, that straight can be beaten only by a suit straight ending in any other ace.  Under any other circumstances, if a suit straight is played on top of a regular straight, the suit is disreguarded and the nest player may throw a regular straight on top of that.  If the original straight is four cards long all following straights must four cards long, until the nest round, and something else is played.  Breakers consist of either three sequential pairs or any four of a kind.  A breaker is the only thing that can beat a simgle Two.  If someone has played a pair of Twos, the only way to beat that is with a double breaker, which is four sequential pairs or any two four of a kinds.  The same increase goes for three Twos.  Now for that execption:  If someone is dealt all four Twos, you can only beat that with a quadruple breaker, six straight pairs or any four four of a kinds.  It does happen, and it is crazy!  However, if you choose to play with two decks these rules do apply, but in order to win automatically, You must be dealt all eight Twos, and the only breaker for that is a straight of eight pairs.  This will most likely never happen but the rules follow that pattern for all breakers.

That's all.  Go play.  Have Fun.