The goal
Durak has no points for tricks. You attack, you defend, and above all you get rid of your cards. The last player left holding cards is the fool, and the fool loses the deal.
The deal
A thirty-six card deck, six up to ace. Six cards each, or five at a full table of six. One card is turned face up to set trump and slid under the stock, so it is the very last card drawn. Whoever holds the lowest trump makes the first attack. If nobody was dealt a trump, the player after the dealer does.
The play
The player to your left defends. You attack by laying a card in front of them. Once an attack is open, any player except the defender may throw in another card, so long as its rank is already on the table. Up to five cards may attack the first bout, six after that, never more than the defender is holding; throwing in stops once everyone eligible has passed or that limit is reached. Nobody can pass on an empty table: someone has to open. A new card on the table, or covering the last open attack, lets anyone who had passed throw in again.
Cover each attacking card with a higher card of the same suit, or with any trump if the attack is not a trump. A trump can only be beaten by a higher trump. Several attacks can sit unanswered at once, and you must deal with all of them.
If you cannot or will not cover everything, you take the whole table into your hand. The attack passes to the player after you, skipping you entirely. Beat everything and the cards are set aside, out of play for good. You become the next attacker. A take ends the bout at once, and nothing more can be thrown in after it. There is no passing an attack along: covering and taking are the defender's only moves.
After each bout, hands are refilled from the stock back up to six cards: the attacker first, then everyone else around the table, and the defender last. Beaten cards go out of play and only their number is shown, so nobody can count trumps exactly; the turned trump is the one card everyone knows. Once the stock is gone, there is no refilling and the end is near.
Scoring
Once the stock is gone, a player who empties their hand is out, and the order of going out is the placing. If more than one hand empties in the same bout, those players tie for that placing and each scores its full points. Each place scores the number of players minus the place, and the fool scores nothing. At a table of four that is three, two, one, nothing; head to head, the winner scores one. If everyone left goes out in the same bout, the deal is a draw and nobody is the fool. A deal that reaches 150 bouts is placed by hand size, fewest cards first, and a lone player holding the most is the fool.
Winning
A match is five deals unless the table is set to another length, from three to fifteen. Placing points add up from deal to deal. After the last deal, the highest total wins. Players level on the top total share first place.
