Throw-in Durak — the rules of the basic game

Who may throw cards in, when, and how big the pile is allowed to get

Throw-in Durak (podkidnoy durak) is the standard version of the game — the one people mean when they just say "Durak". The defender has exactly two options: beat the attacking card or take the table. Everyone else has a third one, and it is the whole point of the variant: throw in extra cards for the defender to beat.

A throw-in is legal under one condition — the rank must already be on the table, either among the attacking cards or among the cards that beat them. Suit is irrelevant. Two ceilings cap the pile: never more cards than the defender held when the round opened, and a table limit of five attacking cards while the discard pile is still empty, six once a round has been beaten. When the round ends, either everything goes to the discard pile or everything goes into the defender's hand, and then players draw back up to six.

The deal, the trump and the ranking of cards work as in the rules of Durak. What follows is only the throw-in machinery — the part that decides most rounds.

Who is allowed to throw in

The attacker always may. Having led one card, they keep the right to add more of a matching rank for as long as the round runs.

Everyone else depends on a table setting. Durak Live calls it Who throws in, with two values:

The point people get wrong: Neighbors bans nobody. It does not lock the far side of the table out of the round — it narrows what they may send. A distant player sitting on three kings can only put them in if the round opened on a king; if kings merely turned up later as a defending card, they have to keep them.

The defender never throws in — they are the one being buried. And the setting only starts to matter at four players or more: with two or three, the attacker plus the player after the defender already is the whole table, so Neighbors and All behave identically. How the seat count changes this is in Durak with 2, 3, 4 or 6 players.

Which cards may be thrown in

Only a rank that has already appeared on the table. The important part is that both halves of every pair count:

• the attacker leads 9♦ → nines are open;
• you beat it with Q♦ → queens are open too;
• someone throws in 9♣ → still nines, still legal;
• you beat that with K♣ → kings are now open as well.

So a defence is never free: every card you beat with opens its own rank for throw-ins. Beating a six with the ace of trumps does not close the round — it invites every ace at the table.

Ranks are what matters, never suits: a nine of clubs is thrown in on a nine of diamonds without any suit connection, and a trump is thrown in exactly like any other card — it just costs its owner a trump.

The two ceilings

1. Five attacking cards until a round has been beaten, six after that. The limit is tied to the discard pile: while the pile is empty, an attack may not grow past five; once a round is fully beaten and lands in the discard, the ceiling is six for the rest of the game.

   This is not a "first round" rule, and the difference matters. The pile only fills when a defender beats everything — so if the defender takes the table, nothing is discarded and the next round is capped at five as well, for as long as nobody successfully defends. Note also that this counts attacking cards: with the defences on top, a six-card attack shows twelve cards.

2. Never more than the defender can beat. The number of attacking cards may not exceed the number of cards the defender held when the round opened — cards they have already spent beating still count. If they started with three, the attack stops at three. This bites hardest on the opening attack of the game and in the endgame, when hands are short.

The second ceiling is the one beginners trip over, usually while wondering why the game refuses a legal-looking card. It is also a tactical fact worth using: a short hand is a shield. A player down to two cards cannot be buried, only pressed with two — which is exactly why the endgame is a different game, as strategy and tactics explains.

One more limit people forget: you cannot throw in a card you do not hold. The ranks may be open, but if all your nines are in the discard pile, the round is over for you.

Example 1. A round that runs into the ceiling

Trump: ♠ (spades). Four players: Anna → you (defender) → Boris → Dasha. Who throws in: All. This is the first round of the game, so the discard pile is empty and the limit is five. Your hand: 10♦, 8♠, 10♥, J♣, 6♣, A♦.

1. Anna attacks with 7♦ — attacking card 1. Ranks open: 7.
2. You beat it with 10♦. Ranks open: 7 and 10.
3. Boris throws in 7♣ — card 2. You have nothing in clubs, so you beat it with the trump 8♠. Ranks open: 7, 10, 8.
4. Dasha throws in 8♥ — card 3. That rank exists only because of the card you just defended with. You beat it with 10♥.
5. Anna throws in 10♣ — card 4. You beat it with J♣, and jacks are now open too.
6. Boris throws in J♦ — card 5. You cover it with A♦: same suit, higher card.
7. Dasha is holding the last jack and would love to send it. She cannot: the discard pile is still empty, so five attacking cards is the wall. The round is over.

All ten cards go to the discard pile, you have shed five cards from your hand, and you attack next. Two things just changed for the rest of the game: the discard pile now exists, so every later round plays to six, and Dasha is still carrying the jack she could not get rid of. That is the shape of a well-played defence — expensive, but it clears your hand faster than any attack does.

Example 2. The defender's hand caps the attack

Trump: ♥ (hearts). Three players: Anna → you → Boris. The deck is empty. You hold two cards: 9♠ and K♥.

Anna attacks with 9♦. Between them, Anna and Boris hold the other two nines and would gladly send both across — but you opened the round with two cards, so the table may never show more than two attacking cards. Only one of those nines can ever land.

You beat 9♦ with K♥: the trump king is your only answer, because a nine does not beat a nine. Boris throws in 9♣, the second and final card the ceiling allows. Your last card is 9♠, which beats nothing, so you take the table — three cards, not four.

The ceiling turned a burial into a scratch: a short hand is genuinely hard to bury.

What goes to the discard pile

• The defender beat everything. Every card of the round — attacks and defences alike — goes face down to the discard pile, out of the game: nobody plays it again and nobody may look through it. The defender becomes the next attacker, and from here on the table ceiling is six.
• The defender took the cards. The whole table goes into their hand, and they are skipped as attacker — the player after them leads the next round. At most tables the others get one last chance to throw in up to the limit before the pile is picked up, so announcing a take early is rarely free.

Nothing else ever reaches the discard pile: the only way to shed a card is to play it into a round that gets beaten.

Drawing back up to six

After the round ends, players top their hands back up to six from the deck — the attacker draws first, then the rest in turn order, and the defender draws last. Anyone already holding six or more draws nothing.

Once the deck is empty there is no refilling, and the bottom trump card is taken by whoever draws the last card. From then on every card you take is permanent. How long the deck lasts is pure arithmetic — deck size minus six cards per player — and it is worked out for every combination in 24, 36 or 52-card decks.

Mistakes that cost rounds

1. Beating the first card with a high trump. You have not seen the attack yet — only its first card. Count what else can land before you spend anything.
2. Forgetting that your own defence opens a rank. The queen you covered with is now a target.
3. Throwing in a rank that is not on the table. It is simply illegal, and the game will not accept the card.
4. Taking the table one card too late. Three cards early in the game is nothing; six in the endgame is the game.
5. Confusing a throw-in with a transfer. Anyone except the defender throws in; only the defender may transfer, and only instead of the first beat. That is the transfer variant, a different setting entirely.
6. Attacking with a rank the table is full of. Lead a rank that is nearly exhausted and nobody gets to dump anything on top.

Every term used above — attacker, beat, discard pile, throw in — is defined in one place in the glossary.