Чёрная книга: Дурак (Black Book: Durak)
Чёрная книга: Дурак (Black Book: Durak) Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Overview
- Players: 2 to 6
- Ages: 14 and up
- Playing time: about 20 minutes
Game Contents
- 54 standard playing cards. The box contains 54 cards in a unified style. They can be used for any classic card game. Only the cards with effects are used for enchanted durak.
- 36 enchanted cards.
- A two-sided turn-order card.
- 7 exclusive cards for Black Book: The Board Game.
- These rules.
Classic Durak
The rules in this section (printed pages 4–9) are for players who are not familiar with classic durak. Every group has its own house rules for durak, and you may play by this version or by the way you are used to. If you want to try the enchanted card effects straight away, go to the Enchanted Durak section (printed page 10).
Deck and Ranks
Classic durak is played with a 36-card deck with four suits: hearts, diamonds, spades and clubs. Each suit has nine cards of different rank, and each card is stronger than the one before it. The rank order in every suit is: 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, jack, queen, king, ace.
Higher cards beat lower cards of the same suit, but not the other way round.
At the start of each game of durak, one suit becomes the trump suit. Trumps can beat any other cards, except the higher cards of their own suit. Cards of the other three suits can beat only cards of their own suit, according to rank.
Translator's note: the printed sentence on trumps is terse. The rules under Playing a Turn state that a trump can be beaten only by a higher trump.
The examples printed with these rules are:
- The jack of diamonds beats the eight of diamonds, according to rank.
- The ten of hearts does not beat the eight of diamonds: they are different suits, and hearts are not the trump suit.
- A trump six beats the eight of diamonds: although the six is lower than the eight, its suit is the trump suit.
The goal of the game is to get rid of all the cards in your hand.
Setup
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Take a standard deck and return to the box all cards from 2 to 5, the Jokers and the two-sided turn-order card. 36 cards should remain.
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Shuffle the deck and deal 6 cards to each player. Place the remaining deck in the centre of the table.
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Turn over the top card of the deck. Its suit is the trump suit. Put this card under the bottom of the deck so that its suit is visible.
If you are playing six players and the whole deck is in the players' hands, the trump suit is determined by the last card dealt. Its owner shows it to the other players so that everyone remembers the trump, and then keeps it.
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Determining the first player: announce "Six." Each player checks whether they hold the trump six. If nobody does, continue naming the cards in rank order (seven, eight and so on) until a player is found who holds the corresponding trump. That player must show it to the others. The player with the lowest trump in hand is the first player, and after them play goes clockwise. If nobody holds any trumps, the first player is the player who dealt the cards.
Playing a Turn
On their turn, a player chooses any one card from their hand and lays it in front of their left-hand neighbour, attacking them. The defending player may beat that card by playing a higher card of the same suit, or a trump, from their hand on top of it. A trump can be beaten only by another trump of higher rank.
While a player is defending, the other players may throw in new cards, and the defender may also transfer the attack to the next player (see the sections below).
Beaten cards remain on the table until the end of the turn, in view so that their ranks can be seen.
Throwing In
At any moment during a turn, every player other than the defender may, out of turn and in any number, throw new cards to the defender. A thrown card must match the rank of a card already on the table (a card that was used to attack or to defend).
A defender may beat no more cards than he has in hand, and no more than six cards in total, counting the first card laid, the thrown-in cards and the transferred cards. If the defender has been thrown more cards than this allows, he may choose which cards to beat, until he runs out of cards in hand or has six beaten cards. The cards he does not beat return to their owners' hands.
Exception: if in this game no player has yet succeeded in defending, the defender may beat a maximum of five cards.
Example: On his turn Dima attacks Masha with the jack of spades (1). Masha defends with the seven of hearts, a trump (2). Sasha throws the seven of diamonds to Masha (3), and Dima throws in the seven of clubs (4). Masha beats them with the jack of diamonds (5) and the ten of clubs (6).
Transferring
If only cards of one rank lie in front of the defender, and he has not yet begun to defend, he may lay a card of the same rank from his hand and transfer the attack to the next player in turn order. He must now defend against all the transferred cards, including the card with which the attack was transferred. If he has another card of the same rank, he may transfer the attack further by the same rules, and so on.
A transfer is not allowed if the number of cards in front of the player after the transfer would exceed the number of cards in that player's hand. Nor may an attack be transferred after at least one card has been beaten.
Example: On Masha's turn she attacks Sasha with the nine of hearts (1). Dima throws the nine of clubs to Sasha (2). Instead of defending, Sasha plays the nine of diamonds (3) and transfers the attack to Dima (4). Now Dima has to beat three nines. If he had the nine of spades, he could transfer the attack to Masha.
End of Turn
If the defender has beaten all the cards laid in front of him, and no one throws in new cards, or there are 6 beaten cards in front of him, all the cards beaten during this turn are discarded. The attacking player's turn ends, and the player who defended takes the next turn.
If a player cannot or does not want to beat the cards laid in front of him, and does not intend to transfer them, he must take all those cards into his hand. In this case he skips his turn, and the player after him attacks.
At the end of each turn, players draw cards from the deck to bring their hands up to 6 cards, starting with the attacking player and then in reverse turn order. The defending player draws last.
If the whole deck has been drawn, including the trump card that lay under it, no one draws any more cards until the end of the game. In a six-player game the whole deck is already in the players' hands, so there is no drawing.
End of Game
If a player has got rid of all the cards in their hand and there are no cards left in the deck to draw, that player leaves the game. The last player still holding cards in hand loses and is declared the durak (the fool).
Enchanted Durak
If you are well acquainted with the rules of classic durak, you can vary them by adding to the deck enchanted cards with different effects.
The box contains 9 sets of enchanted cards. Each set contains 4 cards of one rank, in different suits. To add a set to the game, replace the 4 ordinary cards of that rank in the deck with the enchanted cards of the same rank.
You may add any number of sets, but we recommend getting to know the enchanted effects gradually:
- In your first game of enchanted durak, replace only the sixes and sevens.
- In your second game, also replace the eights, nines and tens.
- In your third game, also replace the jacks and queens.
- In your fourth and later games, play with any number of enchanted cards, as you wish.
Enchanted Cards
Each rank of enchanted cards has a unique effect. If the text of an enchanted card contradicts the rules of the game, follow the text of the card. Otherwise the rules of durak do not change, and the rank order continues to apply.
Six. The card beats any card of the indicated suit, even a trump. Rank is ignored.
Example: an enchanted spade six beats a heart ten, even though the six is lower and its suit is not the trump suit.
Seven. This card cannot be beaten by a trump of another suit.
That is, a heart seven can be beaten only by a higher heart, whatever the trump suit is. A non-trump enchanted six can beat a seven, but a trump spade six does not beat a heart seven.
Eight. When this card is played, name a suit other than the trump suit. The eight counts as a card of that suit.
The eight's effect works both when attacking and when defending. Several eights of the same named suit may lie on the table at once, for example three spade eights. If a player could not defend and took eights into his hand, he may play them later, naming a suit again.
If an eight turns up as the card that determines the trump at the start of the game, that game is played without a trump suit.
Nine. This card can be thrown in even if no other nines have been played.
A nine cannot break the limit of 6 beaten cards (5 in the first defence).
If a nine is thrown in to a card of another rank, the player may no longer transfer the attack to the neighbour on the left.
Ten. This card cannot be transferred. You will have to defend against all the tens.
Jack. This card can be beaten only by a card of lower rank of the same suit or of the trump suit.
The enchanted jack can be beaten only by cards from 6 to 10. The effect also applies to trumps.
Queen. If you defended with this card, you may not throw in cards for the rest of this turn.
If players threw in cards after the queen was played, they must take those cards back into their hands. Cards thrown in before the queen was played must be beaten as usual.
King. If you defended with at least one king, you may change the direction of play at the end of your turn.
The player decides for himself whether to use this effect, but the effect works only if the player has successfully defended: everyone draws cards by the usual scheme, then the player who used the effect attacks, on his turn, the player in reverse turn order, and the draw also takes place in reverse turn order. When the effect is used, place the two-sided turn-order card on the table so that you do not get confused. The effect lasts until the next king is played or until the end of the game. In a two-player game the king's effect is ignored.
Ace. This card beats another ace of the indicated suit, even a trump.
The spade ace beats the diamond ace, the club ace beats the heart ace, the diamond ace beats the club ace, and the heart ace beats the spade ace.
Team Durak
For a game of team durak, with or without enchanted cards, you need exactly four players, two in each team. Players of one team sit across the table from each other, so that both of their neighbours are players from the other team.
The rules remain the same, with some differences:
- Players take turns clockwise, one player skipping each time. For example, if Marina and Yegor are in one team, and Lena and Matvey are in the other, and Marina is the first player, the order of turns is Marina, Lena, Yegor, Matvey.
- Players may attack only players of the opposing team, and may throw cards in only to opponents.
- When one player leaves the game, having got rid of the cards in hand under the normal rules, both players of the other team attack the remaining player on their turns.
- A player left alone in the team against two opponents takes a turn after each opponent, attacking the opponents in the order in which the team would have attacked them with its full line-up. If this player fails to defend against an attack, the second opponent attacks him.
- If only two participants from opposing teams remain, they finish the game against each other under the normal rules.
- The team that wins is the one whose two players both get rid of their cards before the opposing players.
Example: Matvey and Lena are in one team, and Marina and Yegor are in the other. Turns go clockwise. On his turn Yegor attacks Lena (1), and Lena defends, getting rid of all the cards in her hand. Since the draw pile is also empty, Lena leaves the game. The turn passes to Matvey, and he attacks Marina (2), as Lena should have attacked her. If Marina does not defend, Matvey must attack Yegor on his turn, as usual (3). If she does defend, the printed text says that he attacks Matvey as usual, and only after that does the turn pass to the team of Marina and Yegor.
Translator's note: the printed example says "attacks Matvey" in the last sentence, which is the attacking player's own name. It is transcribed here as printed; the sentence most likely means a different player.
Exclusive Cards for Black Book
The box also contains exclusive cards for the board game Black Book. Add them to the basic request cards, which varies the game.