Durak
How to play Durak: your first game, one bout at a time
Durak looks chaotic the first time you watch it. Played slowly, it falls into a simple loop of attack, defence and drawing back up.
Durak is the card game most people from Russia, Ukraine and the rest of the former Soviet Union learned as children. The name means "fool", and the game has no winner. Players drop out safely as they run out of cards, and whoever is left with cards at the end is the durak.
The deal
Take a 36-card deck: every suit from six up to ace. Shuffle and deal six cards to each player. Turn the next card face up and slide it half under the stock so it stays visible. Its suit is trumps for the whole round, and that face-up card will be the very last one drawn.
The player with the lowest trump starts as attacker. The player to their left defends.
One bout
The attacker lays any card face up. The defender has two choices: beat it, or pick it up.
To beat a card, the defender covers it with a higher card of the same suit, or with any trump. A trump can only be beaten by a higher trump. So a nine of hearts beats a seven of hearts, and a six of trumps beats an ace of anything else.
Once the first card is down, the attacker, and in the standard game any other player except the defender, may throw in more cards. The catch is that a thrown-in card must match the rank of a card already on the table, attacking or defending. If the table shows a seven and a nine, only sevens and nines may join. The number of attack cards is capped at six per bout, and never more than the defender held when the bout started. In the first bout of a round the cap is five.
How the bout ends
If the defender beats every card and nobody throws in more, the cards on the table are discarded and the defender becomes the next attacker. If the defender gives up and picks up, every card on the table goes into their hand, the others may throw in a few more matching cards first, and the defender loses their turn to attack.
Then everyone draws back up to six, attacker first, defender last, for as long as the stock lasts.
The end of the round
When the stock is empty, nobody draws any more. A player who plays their last card is out. The last player still holding cards is the fool, and in many households the fool deals the next round.
Try it
The fastest way to learn is to play a few rounds against computer players. A free browser version of Durak has a tutorial and lets you replay a bout until the throw-in limits make sense.
Common questions
How many people can play?
Two to six with a 36-card deck. With six players the first deal uses every card, so there is no stock to draw from, which makes the game short and sharp.
Which cards are high?
Within a suit the order runs from 6 up to 10, then jack, queen, king and ace. Any trump beats any card of another suit.
Can I attack with a trump?
Yes. The defender then has to beat it with a higher trump, which is why a trump lead late in the round can be hard to answer.
What happens when the stock runs out?
Play carries on without drawing. Players who run out of cards leave the game, and the last player still holding cards is the fool.