Durak Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Players and Cards
• Objective
• The Deal
• The Play
  • Attack and Defence
  • Joining the Attack
  • When the Defence Fails
  • Drawing from the Talon
  • Sequence of Play
  • The Endgame
• The Result
• Variations
• Durak Severnyi (Northern Fool)

Players and Cards

• Podkidnoy Durak is played by 2 to 6 people. It is best of all for four players in fixed partnerships of two against two, partners sitting opposite one another. It can equally be played by individuals (2 to 6 players), or by six players in two partnerships of three, seated alternately around the table.
• The game uses a 36-card pack: in each of the four suits, the cards rank from high to low as ace, king, queen, jack, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6. (A standard 52-card pack can be used instead for 5 or 6 players; see Variations.)

Objective

Durak has no winner, only a loser. Each player starts with six cards, and the deal is played out as a sequence of bouts of attack and defence. Whenever a player's hand drops below six cards, it is topped back up from the stock of undealt cards (the talon), so for most of the game everybody's hand size stays near six. Once the talon is used up, there is no more topping up, and the aim becomes simply to empty your hand. The last player still holding cards when everyone else is out is the fool (durak) and is teased for it by the table. In a partnership game, the team that still holds cards when the other team has none loses together.

Durak is almost never played for stakes. Some groups keep score with matchsticks to track how often each player or team has been the fool, and agree that whoever loses most often over a session pays a silly forfeit — crawling under the table and crowing like a rooster is the traditional one.

The Deal

Anyone may deal the very first hand of a session; after that, the loser (fool) of the previous hand deals the next one. The dealer shuffles and deals the cards face down, one at a time, clockwise, until every player has six cards. The next card is turned face up in the middle of the table to show the trump suit, and the rest of the pack is stacked face down crosswise on top of it, so the trump card stays visible while the stock — called the talon — sits on top. Only the dealer handles the cards during this process; they are not normally cut. Dealing is traditionally seen as a menial job that falls to the previous fool as part of the punishment, and if any other player touches the cards during the deal, that player becomes the new fool and takes over dealing duty. Some tables let the dealer offer the deck to be cut after shuffling — but a player who takes that offer and cuts becomes the new fool and dealer instead. Hence the old saying, "one does not take the hat off a fool" — meaning it is unwise to hand the role to someone else once it has settled on you.

With exactly six players and a 36-card pack there is no talon: all the cards are dealt out, and the dealer's final card is turned face up to set trumps. That card belongs to the dealer's hand and is picked up along with the rest once everyone has seen it.

Once hands are dealt, players pick them up and look at them. For the first hand of a session, whoever holds the lowest trump plays first (if there is any dispute, the trump 6 is shown to prove entitlement to start; if nobody has the trump 6, it falls to whoever has the trump 7, and so on upward). The holder of the lowest trump is not required to lead with it — any card may open the first attack. For every hand after the first, play instead simply begins with the player seated to the dealer's left.

The Play

Attack and Defence

Play proceeds as a series of bouts. Each bout has one attacker (who may get help from other players) and one defender, who defends entirely alone.

The attacker opens by laying any card face up on the table in front of the defender. The defender must beat this card, and every attacking card that follows, or else give up and pick up the whole bout. A non-trump card is beaten by playing a higher card of the same suit, or by any trump card at all — there is no obligation to follow suit, since a trump beats a non-trump attack regardless of what suits the defender is holding. A trump card, once led, can only be beaten by a higher trump.

If the defender cannot or does not want to beat the current attacking card, the defender simply picks up every card played during the bout so far — both the attacking cards and any cards already used to beat them — and adds them all to hand. The bout then ends and the attack has succeeded.

If the defender beats the first card, the attacker may add another attacking card, but it must match the rank of some card already on the table in this bout (either an attack card or a card the defender used to beat one). If the defender beats that one too, the attack can keep being extended the same way, subject to three limits:

1. every new attack card must match the rank of a card already played in this bout;
2. the attackers may never play more than six cards in total during a single bout;
3. if the defender started the bout with fewer than six cards in hand, the attackers may not play more cards than the defender was holding.

Attacking cards are laid out face up, separated from one another, in front of the defender; each card the defender uses to beat one is placed face up on top of it, offset enough that both cards' values stay visible.

The defender beats off the whole attack — wins the bout — when any of the following happens:

• the defender has beaten every attacking card played so far, and no opponent is able or willing to add another;
• the defender has beaten six attacking cards, the maximum allowed in one bout;
• the defender began the bout with fewer than six cards and has now used every card in hand to beat attacks.

When an attack is beaten off, every card played during the bout — attacking cards and the cards that beat them alike — is turned face down onto a discard pile and takes no further part in the deal. The defender who won the bout becomes the attacker for the next bout, and the player to that new attacker's left becomes the new defender.

Joining the Attack

The player who opens the bout is the principal attacker, but once the defender has beaten that opening card, any other player who is also an opponent of the defender may join in by throwing in a further card of a matching rank — subject to the permission of the principal attacker, who always has first say. The principal attacker can wave others off ("wait, I'm playing") or invite them in ("go ahead"), and may ask whether anyone else holds a matching card before deciding whether to continue alone. In a four-player individual game, the second attacker (seated to the defender's left) likewise has priority over the third attacker (seated opposite the defender) — the second attacker can stop the third from playing, though may not ask what the third attacker holds or advise on what to play.

When five or six people play as individuals, it is usual to agree beforehand that only the two players seated either side of the defender may take part in an attack; without that limit, a defender in a large game would face far too many attackers to have any real chance.

The defender always defends completely alone. A defender's partner may not help beat off the attack, may not attack their own partner, and may not hand cards to their partner if the attack succeeds — a partner can only watch.

Beyond the six-card and hand-size caps described above, the principal attacker's cards take priority, followed by the other eligible attackers in clockwise order. If the attackers try to play more cards than the defender can legally be shown, the defender may choose which of the offered cards to address and hand the rest back. The same limit applies to any final round of cards handed to the defender after a failed defence (see below): the defender only ever ends up with six cards from a single bout, attacking and beaten cards combined; anything beyond that is returned to the attackers.

In practice, an attacker is free to lay down more than one matching card at once, as long as each one is individually legal — for instance, opening with both remaining sixes rather than playing them one at a time. This mainly speeds the game up, since it makes no real difference to the final outcome, though it does let the defender see more of the attack before committing to a plan.

When the Defence Fails

If, at any point, the defender is unwilling or unable to beat one of the attacking cards, the whole bout goes to the defender: every card played so far, both the attacking cards and whatever the defender already used to beat some of them, is picked up and added to the defender's hand. On top of that, any other player who was eligible to take part in the attack may hand over — face up — extra cards that would have been legal additions had the attack continued; those go to the defender's hand as well, up to the usual overall cap of six cards from the bout. Since the attack succeeded, the defender does not get to attack next. Play moves on: the next attacker is the player to the unsuccessful defender's left, and the defender after that is, as always, the player to the new attacker's left.

Drawing from the Talon

Once a bout is finished, every player whose hand has fallen below six cards draws back up to six from the top of the talon, if there are enough cards left to do so. The attacker draws first, then any other players who joined the attack, in clockwise order, and the defender draws last.

If the talon does not hold enough cards to bring everyone back to six, players draw what is available, in the same order, until it runs out — the later players in the sequence may end up drawing nothing at all. The face-up trump card that started the game is treated as the very last card of the talon, drawn only once everything above it is gone. After the talon is exhausted, play simply continues without any further drawing.

Whoever is dealt the lowest trump (the 6) — or draws it later from the talon — may exchange it for the face-up trump card at any point before the talon runs out, sliding their 6 of trumps face down under the talon and taking the turned-up trump into hand instead. Only the player who originally held or drew that trump 6 may make this trade; a player who later acquires it by picking up a lost bout cannot use it to exchange. If the trump 6 turns up as part of a normal draw from the talon, it can still be exchanged even if another player would otherwise be entitled to draw the face-up trump next — and even if that trump has already been drawn by someone else, the exchange can still be claimed as long as the bout following the exhaustion of the talon has not yet begun.

Sequence of Play

Play runs clockwise around the table. In the very first bout of a hand, the attacker is the player to the dealer's left, and the defender is the next player after the attacker (normally the one further to the attacker's left).

If an attack is beaten off, the defender becomes the attacker for the next bout, and the player after the new attacker becomes the new defender. If an attack instead succeeds, the defender who picked up the cards does not get to attack; the next attacker is the player after the defender, and the defender after that is the player following in turn.

The Endgame

Once the talon is exhausted, players start emptying their hands for good, and whoever runs out drops out of the active rotation — the remaining players carry on among themselves. Exactly how turns then pass depends on the format:

• Individual game. When a player has no cards left, the turn simply skips that player and passes to the next player clockwise who still has cards.
• Four-player partnership game. When a player runs out, their partner takes their turns for them, so the game effectively continues two against two until one side is completely empty-handed.
• Six-player partnership game. As players on a team run out one by one, the remaining teammates keep taking turns in their normal order, simply skipping any teammate who has already emptied their hand.

Whatever the format, the underlying rule from Sequence of Play never changes: winning a bout hands the attack to the winner, and losing a bout hands the attack away — it is only the identity of which player physically takes each turn that shifts once some players are out of cards.

The Result

In an individual game, play continues after the talon is gone until, at the end of some bout, exactly one player still has cards. That player is the fool and deals the next hand.

In a partnership game, play ends when, at the end of a bout, every member of one team has emptied their hand. The other team — whoever among them is still holding cards — has lost. The losing team may decide among themselves who actually deals the next hand, even if only one of them ended up holding cards; if the players are of noticeably different skill, it can be worth having the weaker player deal, since that puts the stronger player in the first defender's seat.

The game can only end at the close of a bout, never partway through one. Occasionally the very last attack of the hand is beaten off using every one of the defender's remaining cards, at the exact moment the talon has also just run dry — in that case nobody is left holding any cards at all, and the hand is simply a draw. When that happens, the loser of the previous hand deals again, giving rise to the old saying that an old fool is worse than two new ones.

Variations

• Who leads after the first hand. The rules above have the player to the dealer's left open the attack in the second and later hands. An older custom instead has that same player open every hand, including the first. For hands after the first, two further customs exist and should be agreed before play starts: "the fool is taught," in which the fool from the previous hand is deliberately attacked first by the player to their right; or "we go from under the fool," in which the player to the fool's left attacks first, as described above.
• Exchanging the low trump. Some groups do not allow trading the trump 6 for the face-up trump card at all. Others allow the exchange only for the trump ace, not for any other trump.
• Larger packs. With five or six players it is possible, though unusual, to play with a full 52-card pack instead of 36. The rules are unchanged except that it is the trump 2, not the trump 6, that can be swapped for the face-up trump — and with this many cards in play there will always be a talon.
• Easing the first defender's burden. In an individual game with more than three players, tables sometimes agree that the very first defender of the hand can be attacked with at most five cards rather than six, since the first defender is otherwise at a heavy disadvantage before anyone else's hand has been thinned out.
• Cutting before the deal. Some groups let (or require) the player to the dealer's right cut the deck before dealing, without this being treated as touching the cards in the punishable sense described under The Deal.
• Two-player play with a short pack. Podkidnoy Durak also works well as a two-player game using a 24-card pack of A-K-Q-J-10-9 only. In this version it is the trump 9, rather than the trump 6, that can be exchanged for the face-up trump.
• Perevodnoy Durak ("transfer fool"). A popular related variant allows the defender, instead of beating an attack card, to "transfer" the whole attack to the next player by adding a card of matching rank — a distinct enough game that it is not detailed further here.

Durak Severnyi (Northern Fool)

This is a modern regional variant of Podkidnoy Durak, believed to have originated in the Komi Republic and since spread more widely, that uses two trump suits over the course of a single hand rather than one.

The deal proceeds as usual, except that after hands are dealt, one card is placed face down in the centre of the table and the trump card is then placed face up on top of it; the rest of the pack is stacked crosswise on top of that as the talon, exactly as in the standard game. Play then follows all the normal rules of Podkidnoy Durak until the talon nears its end. The face-up trump card is drawn as the second-to-last card of the talon, and the very last card — the one dealt face down at the very start — is then revealed by whoever draws it. Its suit becomes the new trump suit for the remainder of the hand, and the original trump suit reverts to being an ordinary suit.