Durak

Goal

Get rid of all your cards. There’s no winner, only a loser: the last player still holding cards is the durak, the fool. If the last bout empties every hand at once, the game is a draw.

Cards

Use a 36-card pack: A, K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7, and 6 in each suit.

Ranking

In each suit the Ace is highest and the 6 is lowest. Any trump beats any card of another suit.

Starting hand

Deal 6 cards to each player.

Setup

Turn the next card face up. Its suit is trumps for the whole game. Put the rest of the pack face down across it as the talon, so the face-up trump is the last card drawn.

Play

1. The lowest trump attacks first in the first game. Whoever holds the lowest trump attacks first. If nobody holds a trump, the player to the dealer’s left attacks first. In each game after it, the player to the left of the last game’s durak attacks first. After a drawn game, the player to the left of the last game’s first attacker does.
2. Attack the player to your left. Play is a series of bouts. The attacker plays one card face up in front of the player to their left, who defends alone.
3. Beat each attack card, or pick up. A card is beaten by a higher card of the same suit or by any trump, and a trump is beaten only by a higher trump. You don’t have to follow suit.
4. Throw in more cards. Once every attack card is beaten, the attacker may play another card, which must match the rank of an attack card or a card that beat one. Then the other players may do the same, starting with the player to the defender’s left. Each card is answered before the next is played. A bout holds at most 6 attack cards, and never more than the defender held when the bout began.
5. Picking up. A defender who can’t or won’t beat a card takes every card on the table into their hand. Before they do, the attackers may add any further cards they could have thrown in.
6. End the bout. When every attack card is beaten and nobody throws in another, the attack is beaten off: its cards leave the game, and the defender attacks next. After a pick-up, the player to the defender’s left attacks next.
7. Refill to 6. After every bout, each player with fewer than 6 cards draws from the talon: the player who opened the bout first, then the other players in turn to the left, and the defender last.
8. Exchange the trump 6. If you were dealt the 6 of trumps or drew it from the talon, you may exchange it for the face-up trump on your turn, while the talon still has cards. A 6 you picked up in a bout can’t be exchanged.
9. Run out of cards. Once the talon is empty, a player with no cards left is out of the game, and play passes over them.

How this version differs

• Attack cards are played one at a time. The published rules also let an attacker play two or more cards of one rank at once.
• The trump 6 is exchanged on your own turn, while the talon still has cards. The published rules allow the exchange at any time before the talon runs out, and even just after, until the next bout begins.

Open the rules page