Kozel

Full rules

1. Overview
2. The cards
3. Setup
4. Playing
5. Scoring
6. Winning the game
7. Tips for beginners
8. Variants

Overview

Kozel ("billy goat") is a partnership card game from Russia, played two against two. It is a trick-taking game: everyone plays one card, the best card wins all four, and together they form a trick. The cards in your tricks are worth points, and your team wants more than half of the 120 points in each deal. What makes Kozel special are its fixed trumps: the Seven of Clubs is the highest card of all, and all Queens and Jacks are always trumps. The first team to win six deals is the winner – the losers are the goats.

This page describes Kozel as played with Queens and Jacks as trumps. Our page on Bura mentions a different game, Burkozel, which is also often just called "Kozel" – see History.

• Players: 4, in two teams of two; partners sit opposite each other. A variant for 3 is below.
• You need: one standard 52-card deck. You play with 32 cards; the four 6s can serve as score markers.

The cards

Take out the 2s, 3s, 4s and 5s and the jokers. Put the four 6s aside – they can be used to keep the score (see Scoring). You play with the remaining 32 cards: A, K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7 of each suit.

Trumps

Trumps are special cards that beat all other cards. In Kozel they never change. There are 14 trumps, from highest to lowest:

1. 7♣ – the highest card in the game, called shamok
2. Q♣ Q♠ Q♥ Q♦ – all four Queens
3. J♣ J♠ J♥ J♦ – all four Jacks
4. A♣ 10♣ K♣ 9♣ 8♣ – the rest of the clubs

Queens and Jacks belong to the trumps, not to their suit: the J♥ is a trump, not a heart. All clubs are trumps too.

Plain suits

The other cards – spades, hearts and diamonds – are plain suits. Each has only six cards, ranked A 10 K 9 8 7 from high to low. Note that the Ten ranks above the King.

Card points

The points don't depend on rank or trump: the 7♣ is the strongest card but worth nothing, the A♠ is a weak card but worth 11. All 32 cards together are worth 120 points.

Setup

1. Teams: sit so that partners face each other. Each team keeps its tricks in one shared pile.
2. Dealer: choose the first dealer at random; after each deal the next player clockwise deals.
3. Deal: the dealer shuffles and deals out all 32 cards face down, clockwise, so that everyone has 8 cards.

Playing

First lead: in the first deal of the game, whoever holds the 8♣ (the lowest trump) leads to the first trick. In every later deal, a player of the team that won the previous deal leads – the two partners look at their cards and decide which of them starts. After a 60–60 deal nobody has won, so the holder of the 8♣ leads again.

The first card of a deal must be a plain card, not a trump – even for the holder of the 8♣, who leads a plain card, not the 8♣. If the player on lead holds only trumps, they swap one trump face down with their partner for a plain card first.

Play goes clockwise. Each player in turn adds one card:

• Follow suit: if a plain suit was led, you must play a card of that suit if you have one. If a trump was led, you must play a trump if you have one – any Queen, Jack or club.
• If you can't follow, you may play any card: a trump to try to win the trick, or a card of another suit.

Who wins the trick: the highest trump in it. If there is no trump, the highest card of the suit that was led wins; cards of other plain suits never win. The winner's team takes the trick, and the winner leads to the next one – now any card may be led, trumps included.

Example: Anna leads K♥. Ben plays 10♥ – he has to follow suit. Carla, Anna's partner, has no hearts and throws her A♠ on it, hoping Anna wins. Dan has no hearts either and plays J♦, a trump. Dan's Jack wins the trick for Ben and Dan: 4 + 10 + 11 + 2 = 27 points. Carla's Ace went to the wrong team.

Example: hearts are led and Ben has no hearts. If he plays the Q♥, that is a trump, not a heart – it beats every heart.

Scoring

When all eight tricks have been played, each team counts the points in its tricks. The two totals always make 120. The team with more than 60 wins the deal and scores pairs:

31 points are called the spas ("rescue"): with them the losers avoid losing double.

Taking all eight tricks is the biggest win: the other team loses all the pairs it has collected so far. According to the Russian Wikipedia, if they have none yet, this wins the whole game at once – a "dry goat".

Example: Anna and Carla take 94 points, Ben and Dan 26 in two tricks. Anna and Carla score 2 pairs. In the next deal Ben and Dan take 67 points and score 1 pair.

Keeping the score with the 6s: traditionally each team takes two of the set-aside 6s (one team the red ones, the other the black ones) and uses them as a score board. A 6 shows three rows of two pips, so two 6s have six rows – one row for each pair. A score pad does the same job.

Winning the game

The first team to reach 6 pairs wins. The losing team are the goats (kozly). According to the Russian Wikipedia, the goats then crawl under the table and bleat. Teasing names await them: "goats with eggs" if there was a 60–60 deal in the game, "goats with tails" if the winners finished with a two-pair deal.

Tips for beginners

• Count the trumps. There are 14. Once the 7♣ and the Queens have gone, your Jacks may be the highest cards left.
• Grease your partner's tricks. When your partner is sure to win a trick, throw your Aces and Tens on it – podmazat' ("to grease") in Russian card slang.
• Give nothing to the opponents. When they win a trick, play your 7s, 8s and 9s, not your Aces.
• Lead from long plain suits so that your partner can trump them when they have none left.
• Watch the 7♣. Hold back your Q♣ while the 7♣ is still out – it is the only card that beats it.

Variants

All of these are optional – agree on them before you start. There are many regional versions of Kozel.

• Four-card Kozel: a popular simpler form described by Russian magazines. Everyone gets 4 cards, and the rest of the pack forms a face-down stock (draw pile). After each trick, everyone draws one card from the stock, starting with the trick winner, until it is used up. The team with 61 or more wins the deal, and the losers get 2 penalty points; 60–60 scores nothing. The team that reaches 12 penalty points loses the game.
• Catching the Q♣: if the 7♣ and the Q♣ of the two teams fall in the same trick, the deal ends at once and the team that played the 7♣ scores 2 pairs (in four-card Kozel: the Q♣ team gets 4 penalty points).
• Redeal: a player dealt all four 9s, or cards worth 12 points or less in total, may show them and ask for a new deal.
• Other top trumps: in some regions the J♥ is the highest card instead of the 7♣.
• With the blind (3 players): two play as partners against a third player who has a blind partner – eight face-down cards nobody may look at. When it is the blind's turn, its player plays the next card from those eight without looking.
• Boasting deals: in Russian Wikipedia's version the first player may "boast" (khvalitsya) instead of a normal deal and pick strong cards through special dealing rituals with names such as "trousers", "mirror" or "barrel". These are complicated and differ from town to town.