Deal and play are anticlockwise.
Players and Cards
The game uses a standard 52-card deck. The cards are ranked from highest to lowest:
A K Q J 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2.
The highest card is A and the lowest is 2.
The trump suit is always higher than the other cards.
Determination of Hâkem and Dealer
At the beginning of the game one of the players becomes Hâkem and the other becomes dealer. One card is dealt to each player alternately (it’s randomly decided to whom the first card is dealt) from the deck and the player to whom the higher card is delt becomes Hâkem and the other player becomes dealer.
The player who becomes Hâkem has some privileges in the game. Those privileges in Hokm are:
- Being the player with whom the dealing begins.
- Being the player who orders up trump suit (chooses and declares which card will be the trump suit) for the current round.
- Being the player who leads to the first trick of each round.
If Hâkem looses the round, the winning player becomes Hâkem.
Card Dealing
The cards are dealt alternately starting from Hâkem and so 13 cards are dealt to each player. At first the dealer deals 5 cards to Hâkem and then Hâkem checks his/her cards and declares the trump suit, after which the card dealing continues. After 13 cards were dealt to each player, the remaining 26 cards are put facedown in the middle of the table and no one can see them. In the next round all the 52 cards are being dragged and are dealt to players in the same way.
Game Rules
Hâkem starts the game and puts a card on the table. The other player must follow Hâkem and put his card. If the player doesn’t have a card of the same suit he/she can play with a card of another suit (including trump), but if the player has a card of the same suit he/she must play with it and he/she cannot play with a card of a trump suit.
For example, if the game has started and there’s a card of the hearts suit and you have a card of hearts suit and you also have a trump suit card you must play with the hearts suit card and you cannot play with the trump suit card.
Example: if the player number 2 put a spades suit card on the table and the player number 1 doesn’t have a card of the same suit to respond or to win, he/she can put a card of another suit that he/she has or if he/she has a trump suit card he/she can put the trump suit card and win the trick.
Scoring
- The first player to take 7 tricks wins the round and scores 1 point.
- If Hâkem takes the first 7 tricks and the other player doesn’t take anything, he/she scores 2 points instead of 1.
- If Hâkem’s rival wins by taking the first 7 tricks he/she scores 3 points instead of 1.
- The first player to reach 7 points wins the game.
- If Hâkem won the round, he/she stays Hâkem. Otherwise, the other player becomes Hâkem for the next round.