Court Piece

Full rules

1. Overview
2. Setup
3. Playing
4. Winning a deal
5. Courts
6. The next dealer
7. Winning the game
8. Tips for beginners
9. Variants

Overview

Court Piece, called Rang or Rung ("trumps") in Pakistan, is a partnership game like Whist. It is a trick-taking game: each player plays one card, and the best card wins all four – together they form a trick. One player chooses the trump suit after seeing only five cards. The team that wins 7 of the 13 tricks wins the deal; the real prize is a court – seven deals in a row, or the first seven tricks of a deal without the opponents winning one.

• Players: exactly 4, in two fixed teams; partners sit opposite each other.
• You need: one standard 52-card deck, no jokers, and paper and pencil.
• Direction: dealing and play go anticlockwise (to the right).
• Card ranking, high to low: A K Q J 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2.

Setup

1. Choose the first dealer at random. The player on the dealer's right is the trump-caller. The dealer shuffles, and the trump-caller cuts.
2. The dealer deals 5 cards to each player in one batch, starting with the trump-caller.
3. The trump-caller looks at these five cards and, without any help from their partner, announces the trump suit. A trump beats every card of the other suits.
4. The dealer deals the remaining cards in batches of 4, until everyone has 13 cards.

Playing

The trump-caller leads any card to the first trick. Going anticlockwise, everyone plays one card:

• Follow suit: if you have a card of the suit that was led, you must play one.
• If you can't, you may play any card – a trump or a discard.
• The trick is won by the highest trump in it, or, without trumps, by the highest card of the suit led.
• The winner of a trick leads to the next one.

If you fail to follow suit although you could, you may correct it before the trick is complete. If the mistake isn't corrected, the opponents score a court.

Example: Spades are trumps. North leads K♥, West plays A♥, South has no hearts and plays 3♠, East plays 5♥. South wins with the small trump.

Winning a deal

The team that wins 7 tricks wins the deal. To save time, play normally stops as soon as one team has 7 tricks.

Courts

The score is counted in courts. A team scores a court when:

• it wins 7 deals in a row, or
• it wins the first 7 tricks of a deal while the opponents win none, or
• the opponents fail to follow suit and don't correct it.

Keep count of how many deals in a row each team has won; losing a deal sets your count back to zero. Whenever a court is scored, both counts start again from zero.

If the dealer's team wins the first 7 tricks, this is a goon court. A team that plays on and wins all 13 tricks scores a 52-court (bavney), which counts as 52 courts.

Example: North–South have won 6 deals in a row. They win the next deal 7 tricks to 4: their seventh in a row – one court.

The next dealer

• If the dealer's team won the deal, the player on the dealer's right deals next.
• If the trump-caller's team won without a court, the same dealer deals again.
• If the trump-caller's team scored a court, the dealer's partner deals next.

So the dealer always belongs to the team that lost the last deal, and the trump-caller always belongs to the winners.

Winning the game

Play for an agreed length of time. The team with more courts wins.

Tips for beginners

• Call trumps in your longest suit among your five cards, especially if you hold the Ace or King.
• Count trumps: there are 13; once they're gone, your Aces are safe.
• Help your partner: if partner is already winning the trick, don't overtake – play a low card.
• Go for the first seven. A clean run of 7 tricks at the start is worth as much as seven deals in a row.

Variants

All optional – agree on them beforehand.

• Hidden trump: the trump-caller places a card of the trump suit face down instead of announcing it; the others find out later.
• Blind trump: the trump-caller may refuse to choose; then one card of their second batch is turned up at random, and its suit is trumps.
• Weak hand: if the trump-caller's five cards are all lower than a Jack, they may demand a redeal.
• Points instead of courts: the trump-caller's team scores 1 point for 7 tricks, 3 for a court; the other team scores 2 for 7 tricks, 4 for a court.
• Double Sir: the winner of a trick only takes it in if they also won the trick before; otherwise the cards stay in the middle for the next winner. A court in one deal needs all 13 tricks, and a goon court counts as three.