How to play Durak online with friends

One private table, a four-digit password, one link for everybody

To play with friends you need a private table — a game nobody from the public lobby can walk into. Here is the whole thing:

1. Open New game and pick the stake, the mode, the deck and how many seats you want (2–6).
2. In the Access section switch to Private. A pin pad opens — set a four-digit password.
3. Tap Create game. You land at the table alone, with a "Waiting for players…" card in the middle.
4. Tap Share link and send the link to your friends in any messenger. Tell them the password separately — it is not part of the link.
5. Your friend opens the link, types the four digits and takes a seat.

The hand starts once every seat is filled and everyone has tapped Ready.

Step 1. Set up the table

You choose everything before the table exists, and whatever you pick is what your friends walk into. Nothing can be changed once the hand is dealt, so agree on it first.

Two connections worth knowing in advance. First, the 24-card deck caps the table at four players — there simply aren't enough cards for six, so picking five or six silently drops back to four. Second, the stake applies to everyone: if a friend has fewer coins than you staked, the server turns them away with "Insufficient funds". For a first game with a group that hasn't played yet, 100 coins is the safe choice.

Your settings are stored on your account, so the New game screen opens next time exactly as you left it. Rebuilding the same table later takes two taps.

If some of the group is still fuzzy on how the game works, send them the rules of Durak along with the link — and if you're turning on transfer mode, how passing the attack works.

Step 2. Get your friends in

Once the table exists there are three ways to fill it. All three live both on the waiting card in the middle of the table and in the Invite friends sheet.

1. A link. "Share link" produces a /game/<game number> URL. On a phone it opens the system share sheet (Telegram, WhatsApp, Viber, mail — whatever you have); in a browser that supports Web Share, the same; on desktop it simply copies the link to your clipboard and tells you so. Paste it wherever your group talks.
2. Your friends list. If you're already friends inside the game, the invite sheet lists them with a "+" button. One tap sends the invite straight into their app: a popup shows the table's settings and an Accept button that seats them immediately. Anyone already at the table is marked as such and gets no button.
3. Telegram. Inside the Telegram mini app the share button behaves differently: it opens Telegram's own chat picker, and the bot posts the game card into the chat you choose. The recipient taps it and the mini app opens directly at your table.

The password is never sent automatically — not in the link, not in the invite. That is the entire point of a private table: the link can get forwarded around a group chat, and it still won't seat anyone who doesn't have the four digits.

Nothing expires while you wait. If nobody shows up for a while, the game offers you a hand against a bot to pass the time; that doesn't touch the private table — your friends can still walk in whenever they get to their phones.

Does your friend need an account?

No. Anyone opening your link for the first time gets a guest account automatically — the session is created before the table is even drawn. No email, no password, no confirmation: open the link, type the table's pin, play.

Registering matters only for the things that should outlive the device: keeping your coins and rating through a reinstall, being findable by nickname, and having a friends list with instant invites. For one evening with a group, it's optional.

One table, four platforms

Durak Live exists as a browser game, an iOS app, an Android app and a Telegram mini app. The table is the same object in all of them — a numbered game on the server — and the link resolves to it from any client.

So this is a perfectly ordinary evening: you create the table on a laptop in Chrome, one friend joins from the iPhone app, another from Android, and a third never installs anything and plays inside Telegram. Nobody "connects" to anybody; everyone just opens the same link.

One caveat: a guest account lives on the device that created it. If a friend starts in a mobile browser and later installs the app, the game sees two different people until they sign in.

How many players to seat

Two to six, and the number changes the game more than people expect.

• Two — the cleanest duel. Everything you discard comes back to you, and the deck is almost fully readable.
• Three or four — something a duel never has: a player can dump awkward cards into someone else's attack, and one player losing isn't equally good news for everyone.
• Five or six — long circles, heavy throw-ins, and a real gap between Neighbors and All: with All, the entire table can bury a defender in a single turn.

The full breakdown of how the game shifts with the count is in the article on Durak for 2, 3, 4 and 6 players — including why six players almost always want the 52-card deck.

One mode deserves its own mention: Cheats 😏 is best switched on precisely with friends rather than strangers, because the table is allowed to cheat and allowed to accuse. How it works, and what gives people away, is covered in the Cheats mode article.

When something goes wrong

The usual complaints, and what they actually mean:

"The table disappeared" almost always means one of two things: the hand finished, or the host left the lobby before it filled. The link is dead after that — the game number points at nothing. A new table and a new link is the only fix.

A dropped connection is not a forfeit. If a friend loses signal on the subway, the client retries the connection several times on its own and keeps their seat. You only get thrown out once those retries are exhausted.

One more thing that confuses people: a private table does appear in the public game list, but player names are masked there and the table can't be entered without the password. That's deliberate — the table is protected by access, not by being hidden.

Playing again with the same group

You don't rebuild anything. When the hand ends, the results screen has Rematch: same table, same people, same settings — the server simply deals a new hand a few seconds later. No new link, no re-entering the password.

The neighbouring Play again button does something else entirely: it looks for a fresh quick game against random opponents. For an evening with friends, Rematch is the one you want.

While you're still in the lobby, the host can change their mind about privacy. There's a lock button at the bottom of the screen — visible only to the host, and only before the hand starts. Locked → open the table to everyone and drop the password. Open → set a new pin and it's friends-only again. Handy when three of you are tired of waiting for a fourth and would rather let a stranger fill the seat.

And if it becomes obvious after three hands that one person in the group wins far too often, strategy and tactics explains what they're actually doing.