Durak
Durak is Russian for "fool", and that is the whole point of the game: there is
no winner to speak of. Everybody who empties their hand simply leaves the table.
Play carries on until one player is left holding cards, and that player is the
Durak.
Objective
Get rid of all your cards. You do not need to be first — you only need to avoid
being last.
Setup
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Deck: 36 cards — 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, J, Q, K, A in all four suits.
•
Ranking: A (high), K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6 (low).
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The deal: six cards to each player.
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The trump suit: one card is turned face up beside the stock. Its suit is
trump for the whole game, and it is the last card anyone draws.
Any trump beats any card of the other three suits, whatever the ranks.
The player holding the lowest trump leads the first attack. If nobody was dealt
a trump, the first seat leads. The first seat rotates between games: Player 1
in the first game, Player 2 in the next, and so on around the table.
A bout
Play moves clockwise. Each round is a bout between two players:
•
The attacker is the player whose turn it is.
•
The defender is the player to their left.
The attack
The attacker plays one face-up card onto the table.
The defence
The defender must beat it with a card that is either
1.
higher in rank and of the same suit, or
2.
any trump, when the attacking card is not a trump, or
3.
a higher trump, when the attacking card is a trump.
Throwing in
Once a card has been beaten, the attacker may throw in another — but only one
whose rank already appears somewhere on the table, on an attacking card or on
a defending one. The defender must beat each new card in turn.
A bout carries at most six attacking cards, and never more than the number of
cards the defender held when the bout began.
How a bout ends
The defence holds. The defender beats everything and the attacker has
nothing left to throw in (or chooses to stop). Every card on the table goes to
the discard pile, out of the game. The defender becomes the next attacker.
The defender takes. The defender cannot beat a card, or decides not to, and
picks up everything on the table — attacking and defending cards alike. The
bout ends at once, and because they had to take, they forfeit their turn to
attack: the player to their left attacks next.
Drawing
At the end of every bout, players draw back up to six cards from the stock: the
attacker first, then everyone else in turn, and the defender last. The face-up
trump card is the last card taken from the stock.
Once the stock is gone, nothing more is drawn and play continues with the cards
in hand.
Winning and losing
With the stock gone, a player who runs out of cards has gone out and takes no
further part. Play continues between the rest.
The last player still holding cards is the Durak. Everyone else got away.
If a final defence empties the last two hands at once, nobody is the Fool.
Playing here
•
Press a card in your hand to attack with it, or to beat the card facing you.
Only the cards that are legal at that moment are pressable.
•
Finish the bout appears to the attacker once at least one card has been
beaten and there is nothing left unanswered.
•
Take the cards appears to the defender whenever a card is waiting to be
beaten. It is always available — giving up early is a real choice, not a last
resort.
•
The trump card and the trump pip sit at the top left. The pip stays there
after the card itself has been drawn.