The rules of Durak card game
Specifics on durak24.com
There is no official set of rules how Durak card game should be exactly played. There are many variants of it, each slightly differing from anothers. We defined a special set of rules to be played on this site. Rules on durak24.com desingned to make the game more dynamic and easy, also to suit better for online playing.
Main concepts and setup
On this site Durak is played using a set of 24 cards. There are four different suites: Hearts, Spades, Diamonds and Clubs in the deck. Each suit consists of six cards of different range. Ace is considered to be the strongest range. Then follows King, Queen, Jack, Ten and Nine on the end. One of suits is picked to be Trump suit. A card any range of trump suit is considered to be stronger than any card that is not of trump suit.
The deck is shuffled, and each player receives six cards. The remaining deck (further referred as just Deck) is placed on the table separately, and card from the bottom of it is made visible and it determines the trump suit. Players can see their cards, but do not show them to each other.
Goal of the game
The object of the game is to be the first player to get rid of cards. There is no winner in this game, only a looser. The player who is left with cards at the end of the game is the looser. The looser is called Durak, which means "Fool".
Gameplay
One of the players becomes an attacker, and another is then a defender. The attacker opens the attack by playing one card face up on the table as an attacking card. The defender has to immediately attempt defense in response to the initial attack. The defender can beat attacking card by the higher card of same suit or trump. If attacking card is beaten, it becomes half-covered by defending card. Then the attacker may continue attack with another card, but only when there already is a defending or attacking card of the same rank on the table. Then the defender has to beat this new attacking card. Attack is finished when it succeeds or fails. Attack succeeds when defender is unwilling or unable to beat attacking card. If attack succeeds defender must pick up all the attacking and defending cards of the table. After attack is succeeded the attacker starts a new attack again. If the defender beats attacking card and the attacker is unwilling or unable to continue with another card than attack fails. If attack fails, the defender becomes the new attacker and the attacker becomes the new defender, attack and defence cards are taken away of the table (they are not going to be used in this game anymore). Then the new attaker starts a new attack.
The defender can beat attacking card by his higher card. Defending card must be trump or of the same suit as attacking card. Non-trump attacking cards may be beaten by a higher card of the same suit or a trump. Trump attacking cards may only be beaten by higher trumps.
When attack ends, if there are some cards left in the deck, each player with less than 6 cards must draw cards from the deck until having 6 cards. Nobody can loose the game while there are some cards still left in the deck, beacause after each attack cards in players` hands are refilled if necesary.