- Player: 2-6
- Cards: 36
- Play: Clockwise
The deck is shuffled, and each player is dealt six cards. The bottom card of the stock is turned and placed face up on the table, its suit determining the trump suit for the current deal.
The player with the lowest trump is the first attacker and leads to the first trick. The player to the attacker's left is always the defender. After each round of attack play proceeds clockwise. If the attack succeeds (see below), the defender loses their turn and the attack passes to the player on the defender's left. If the attack fails, the defender becomes the next attacker.
The Ace is the highest card of each suit and the Six is the lowest. A trump card of any rank beats all cards in the other three suits. The attacker opens their turn by playing a card face up on the table as an attacking card. The player to the attacker's left is the defender. They respond to the attack with a defending card.
The defender attempts to beat the attack card by playing a higher-ranking defending card from their hand. The defender must play a higher card of the same suit as the attack card or play a card of the trump suit.
If the defender is successful, then the player to the left of the defender may start a new attack. There can not be more than 6 attacks in each round. All other players may make a new attack if the defender has successfully defended the last attack. At any point during a round of attacks, if the defender can not defend, must pick up all the cards played during that round. If, however, the defender has beaten all attacking cards and no other players are willing to make another attack or if the defender beats the sixth attack card, the defender has won the round of attacks. In this case all cards from that round of attack are placed in the discard pile and the defender starts a new round of attacks as the attacker and the player to his or her left becomes the new defender.
At the end of each round of attacks against a defender, whether or not the defence was successful, each player draws new cards from the deck until they have six cards in their hand unless the deck has been exhausted. Players who have played their last card leave the game and do not draw new cards from the deck. The defender's final card must beat the last attack card, otherwise they must pick up all the cards played during that round of attacks.
The last person left with cards in their hand is the loser (the fool or durak). In some variants, this player becomes the dealer for the next round. The player to the fool's right may become the first attacker for the next round.