Durak glossary: every term at the table

Attacker, trump, throw in, transfer, discard pile — in plain words, A to Z

Five words carry most of a game of Durak. The trump is the suit that beats everything else, fixed for the whole game by the bottom card of the deck. The attacker puts a card on the table and the defender has to beat it — cover it with a higher card of the same suit, or with any trump. While that is happening, the other players throw in more cards, but only of a rank already lying on the table. If the defender covers everything, the whole round goes to the discard pile and is out of the game; if not, the defender takes it all into their hand.

Everything below is alphabetical, and the terms are used in exactly this sense across the whole site — starting with the rules of Durak.

Attack

One card played for the defender to beat, and by extension the whole set of cards played against them in a round. An attack may grow to five cards while the discard pile is still empty and to six once a round has been beaten — or to the number of cards the defender held when the round opened, whichever is smaller.

Attacker

The player who leads the round. The attacker chooses the opening rank, keeps the right to add matching cards for as long as the round runs, and draws first from the deck afterwards. Choosing what to lead with is the most underrated decision in the game.

Beat

To cover an attacking card with a higher card of the same suit, or with any trump. A trump can only be beaten by a higher trump. Beating is not free: every card you beat with opens its own rank for throw-ins.

Bottom card

The card turned face up under the deck at the deal. Its suit is the trump suit for the whole game, and the card itself stays in play — whoever draws the last card of the deck takes it.

Cheat Mode

A table setting that lets players break two specific rules on purpose: throwing in a rank that is not on the table, and "beating" a card with one that does not beat it. Any opponent may accuse a card on the table; a correct call rewinds the table, a wrong one costs you the round. Details are in the Cheat Mode article. 😏

Clean rank

A rank whose other copies are already in the discard pile. Attacking with one is the safest attack in the game, because nobody can throw in on top of it. Tracking which ranks are clean is one of the few counting habits that pays for itself immediately.

Deck

The pile players draw from, and by extension its size: 24, 36 or 52 cards. The deck decides how many trumps exist, how heavy throw-ins get and how long the game has a middle — see 24, 36 or 52-card decks.

Defender

The player under attack, sitting clockwise from the attacker. They may beat the cards or take them, and in the transfer variant they get a third option. The defender is the only player who may never throw in.

Discard pile

Where a round goes when the defender beats every card: face down, out of the game, never looked at again. Nothing else ever reaches it — the only way to shed a card from your hand is to play it into a round that gets fully beaten. It also sets the table ceiling: while the discard pile is still empty, an attack may not grow past five cards.

Draw

Topping your hand back up to six cards from the deck at the end of a round. The attacker draws first, the defender last, and anyone already holding six or more draws nothing. Once the deck is empty nobody draws again, and the game changes character completely.

Durak

The loser — literally "the fool". A player who sheds their last card once the deck is empty leaves the game as a winner; the game continues until one player is left holding cards, and that player is the durak. At a table of six this means five people win and one loses, which is why the goal is to not be last rather than to beat everyone — see Durak with 2, 3, 4 or 6 players.

Endgame

The phase after the deck stops refilling hands. Everything inverts: taking the table becomes permanent, high trumps become weapons rather than savings, and off-suit aces become unbeatable attacks. Knowing exactly when the switch happens is most of what separates strong players from average ones — strategy and tactics covers it in detail.

Hand

The cards you are holding. Its size is also a rule: the attack against you may never contain more cards than you hold, so a short hand is genuinely harder to bury than a full one.

Lead

To play the first card of a round, as the attacker. "The lead" also means the initiative itself — the position of choosing what rank hits the table — which is the most valuable thing to hold in the endgame.

Neighbours

The attacker and the player sitting after the defender. In Durak Live the Who throws in setting takes either Neighbors or All: under All, everyone but the defender may throw in any rank on the table; under Neighbors those two keep that freedom and everybody else is restricted to the rank of the first attacking card. Nobody is shut out of the round either way. The setting only starts to matter from four players up — with two or three, those two neighbours already are the whole table.

Private table

A game protected by a four-digit password, so only the people you send the link and the digits to can sit down. It appears in the public game list but cannot be entered without the pin. Setting one up is described in playing Durak with friends.

Rank

The value of a card — 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, jack, queen, king, ace in a 36-card deck. Rank is what governs throw-ins and transfers: both need a match in rank, and neither cares about suit at all.

Round

One full attack-and-defence cycle, from the first card led to the table being cleared. It ends either with everything going to the discard pile or with the defender taking it all, and is followed by the draw.

Suit

Hearts, diamonds, clubs or spades. One of them is the trump for the game; the other three matter only for beating — you beat a card of the same suit with a higher one.

Table

The cards in play in the current round: attacking cards, and whatever has been played on top of them. Also the game itself and its settings — deck, seat count, mode, who may throw in — all of which are fixed before the first card is dealt and cannot be changed afterwards.

Take

To pick up every card on the table into your hand instead of beating it. The defender who takes is skipped as the next attacker; the player after them leads. Taking is cheap while the deck is thick and ruinous once it is empty — most beginners get this exactly backwards.

Tempo

The initiative. A defender who beats the whole attack becomes the next attacker, so beating and "not taking" are not the same thing: one of them buys you the lead. When you are one or two cards from going out, a trump spent on tempo pays for itself.

Throw in

To add a card to an attack somebody else is defending. It is legal only if that rank is already on the table, among the attacking cards or the cards that beat them, and only up to the table ceiling — five attacking cards until a round has been beaten, six after that. Everyone except the defender may do it, though the Neighbors / All setting decides which ranks the distant players may use — the full mechanics are in throw-in Durak.

Transfer

The defender's third option, available only in the transfer variant: instead of beating the first card, you add a card of the same rank and the attack moves to the next player. The window closes the moment you beat anything, and the new defender must hold at least as many cards as the table will show. See transfer Durak.

Trump

The suit that beats all others, set by the bottom card of the deck. Any trump beats any card of another suit, and a trump is beaten only by a higher trump. Exactly a quarter of every deck is trumps — six in a 24-card deck, nine in 36, thirteen in 52 — so the deck you choose decides how much a single trump is worth.

Words that mean the same thing

Durak has been played at kitchen tables for a century, so most terms have two or three names. These are the pairs you will hear most often:

If a term you were looking for is missing, it is almost certainly variant-specific — each variant carries a little vocabulary of its own, and the articles above define it where it is used.