How to play King
The rules exactly as High Card Club plays them.
King, also called Rıfkı, is the Turkish game of many games. Four players, each on their own, play 20 hands, and before every hand one player names which game it will be: one of six penalty games, where certain cards or tricks cost you points, or a trump game, where tricks pay. Over a whole match the penalties and the trumps cancel out exactly, so the scores always add up to zero. The highest score wins.
The deal and whose turn it is to choose
A full 52-card deck, ace high, 13 cards each. The right to name the game moves one seat to the right after every hand, so everybody chooses five times. The chooser also leads the first trick.
Your five choices are not free: over the match you must name 2 trump games and 3 penalty games. And each of the six penalty games can be played only twice in the match, whoever names it. The panel shows what you have left and what the table has left; a game that is used up is greyed out.
The six penalty games
- No tricks (El almaz): every trick you take costs 50.
- No hearts (Kupa almaz): every heart you take costs 30.
- No kings or jacks (Erkek almaz): every king and every jack you take costs 60.
- No queens (Kız almaz): every queen you take costs 100.
- Last two (Son iki): each of the last two tricks costs 180.
- King of hearts (Rıfkı): taking the king of hearts costs 320.
In a penalty game there is no trump: the highest card of the led suit takes the trick. The turn moves to the player on the right. The duties, which the table enforces and explains when you tap a card it will not take:
- Follow the suit that was led if you hold it.
- Out of the suit, a penalty card must go. If you cannot follow and you hold a card the game charges for - a queen in No queens, a king or jack in No kings or jacks, a heart in No hearts, the king of hearts in King of hearts - you must throw one. Which one is up to you.
- Give it when a bigger one is out. If a higher card of the led suit is already on the trick and you hold a penalty card of that suit below it, you must play it. The ace of spades is down and you hold the queen of spades in No queens: the queen goes.
- Hearts stay closed in No hearts and King of hearts: you may not lead a heart until one has been played, unless you hold nothing else.
When every card a game charges for has been taken - the king of hearts has fallen, all four queens are gone - the hand ends on the spot. No tricks and Last two are always played to the last card.
The trump game
The chooser names the trump suit. Every trick you take pays 50, 650 in a hand. The rules are strict, the same as in Batak:
- Follow suit, and beat the winning card of that suit if you can.
- Out of the suit, you must play a trump, and a higher trump than any already on the trick if you can.
- Trump may not be led until a trump has been played, unless you hold nothing else.
How the match ends
The table owner chooses the length before the first deal: 20 hands, or a short match of 12 hands where everybody names 1 trump game and 2 penalty games. There is no target score. After the last hand the player with the highest score wins. By tradition anyone who finishes at zero or above is "out" and anyone below zero is "sunk"; the result screen says which you are.
A full match of 20 hands takes about forty minutes.
At the table
Your seat has a clock that runs around your avatar. At relaxed tempo you get 60 seconds per card and 75 to name the game, at normal 30 and 40, at fast 15 and 25. Run out of time and the table plays, or chooses, for you; do that three turns in a row and it keeps playing your seat until you press Take over or play a card yourself. A lost connection holds your seat 60 seconds, or 10 if Discord tells us you closed the game. Leaving a match on purpose gives your seat, and your remaining choices, to a bot for good.
The other games
Back to how to play, or read the rules for Batak, Spades, Tarneeb, Baloot and Hearts.