Durak X-Ray: Durak with a card memory

How to win at Durak: remember the cards

A game of Durak is decided at the end, when the deck is empty and every card left is in someone's hand. The player who has kept count of the cards makes the right moves there. These are the facts worth tracking:

• Trumps. A 36-card deck holds nine trumps, a 52-card deck thirteen. Once you know how many are still in play, you know when it is safe to spend yours.
• Pickups. Cards an opponent picks up stay in their hand until they play them. An ace taken three rounds ago is still there.
• Takes. A player who takes a single card instead of beating it probably has nothing higher in that suit and no trump.
• The discard. Once the higher cards of a suit are out, a lower card in your hand may be the highest left in that suit, and only a trump can beat it.
• The endgame. With the deck gone and one opponent left, the cards you have not seen are exactly their hand.

Durak X-Ray keeps this count for you. Play with the memory on and see which facts decide a game, then switch it off and keep count in your head. The hard computer opponents remember the whole game, so they are a fair test of your own memory.

Rules of throw-in Durak (Podkidnoy)

Durak, also known as Fool, is the Russian card game where the aim is to get rid of your cards. The last player still holding cards is the durak, the fool. Durak X-Ray plays these rules:

• The deck has 36 cards from six to ace, or 52 cards from two to ace. Each player gets six cards, and the bottom card of the deck is turned face up: its suit is trump.
• In the first game the player with the lowest trump attacks first. In later games the player who lost the previous one defends first.
• The defender beats each attacking card with a higher card of the same suit or with a trump. A trump is beaten only by a higher trump.
• Every player except the defender can throw in a card of a rank already on the table.
• One attack holds up to six cards, five in the first round, and never more than the defender holds.
• A defender who does not beat every card picks up the whole table and misses the next attack.
• After each round the hands are refilled to six from the deck, the attacker first and the defender last.
• Once the deck is empty, players who run out of cards leave the game. The last one holding cards loses.

Rules of transfer Durak (Perevodnoy)

Transfer Durak adds one move. Until any card on the table is beaten, the defender can add a card of the same rank and pass the whole attack to the next player, who then defends against all of it.

• The next player must hold at least as many cards as the attack will have.
• Transfers can chain: each new defender can pass the attack on again.
• There is no transfer by showing a trump.

In transfer Durak the memory also shows how likely the defender is to pass your card on.

Play Durak offline against the computer

• No internet needed: every game runs on your phone.
• One, two or three computer opponents, each playing for themselves.
• Three levels. Easy spends trumps carelessly. Normal plays its cheapest cards and saves trumps while the deck is deep. Hard remembers the whole game and attacks with the cards you are least likely to beat.
• Phones and tablets, in portrait and landscape.
• English, Russian and Ukrainian.
• Your first game comes with a short walkthrough.

Free to play

Durak X-Ray is free, and you can play as many games as you like. In your first game the memory has no limit. After that you get a few free looks that come back over time, and watching an ad can bring them back sooner. A Premium subscription makes the memory unlimited and removes all ads. Ads never interrupt a game in progress.