Table of Contents
What Is Durak?
Goal: Be the first player to get rid of all your cards.
Players: 2
Deck: 36 cards (use a standard deck, but remove all cards 2 through 5)
Card Rank: 6 (low) to Ace (high), with trump cards beating all others
Game Type: Trick-taking
Best For: Adults
Durak is a popular card game from Russia, and the name literally means “fool.” That’s because the loser of the game, the last player left with cards, is called the durak. The game can be played with 2 to 5 players, either solo or in teams, but this version focuses on 2 players.
What makes Durak different from other trick-taking games is that players don’t have to follow suit or play trump cards unless they want to. Each round feels like a battle, where one player attacks and the other defends. The goal is to get rid of all your cards before your opponent does.
Setup and Dealing
Durak is played with a 36-card deck. If you’re using a regular deck of cards, remove all the 2s, 3s, 4s, and 5s.
To decide who deals first, both players draw a card from the deck. The player with the lower card becomes the first dealer.
After shuffling, deal six cards to each player, one at a time. Place the rest of the cards face down in a pile as the draw pile. Flip the top card over to reveal the trump suit, which beats all other suits. Slide the trump card under the draw pile so it’s still visible. After each round, the loser becomes the next dealer.
How to Play
The player with the lowest trump card in hand goes first as the attacker. For example, if hearts are trump and someone has the 6 of hearts, they go first. If no one has the 6, go up the ranks until someone does.
Each turn has an attacker and a defender.
The attacker plays any card to start. The defender then has two choices: pick up the card and add it to their hand, or try to block it by playing a higher card of the same suit or any trump card.
In Durak, you don’t have to follow suit or play a trump card if you don’t want to.
If the defender blocks the attack, the attacker can either stop or continue by playing a card that matches the rank of any card already on the table. For example, if the attacker plays a 9 and the defender blocks with a Jack, the attacker can now play another 9 or another Jack.
This continues until the attacker stops or the defender can’t defend and has to pick up all the cards that were played. If the defender blocks everything, the cards are moved to a discard pile.
Drawing New Cards
After each attack, both players draw from the pile to bring their hands back to six cards. The attacker draws first, then the defender.
If the attacker wins the round, meaning the defender picked up the cards, they attack again. If the defender wins by blocking all attacks, they become the new attacker.
This continues until the draw pile is gone. Then, it’s a race to see who can empty their hand first. The player who gets rid of all their cards wins, and the other player is the durak.
Scoring (Optional)
If you want to play a series of rounds, give one point to the winner of each round. The first player to reach 5 points wins the match.
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