Court piece
Court piece, Rung is a trick-taking card game similar to the card game whist in which eldest hand makes trumps after the first five cards have been dealt, and trick-play is typically stopped after one party has won seven tricks. A bonus is awarded if one party wins the first seven tricks, or even all tricks. The game is played by four players in two teams, but there are also adaptations for two or three players.
Derived games have removed the special role of eldest hand or have added features such as the 2 of hearts as the highest trump, the need to win two consecutive tricks in order to pick up tricks, or counting tens rather than tricks.
The game appears to originate from Iran or Pakistan. In the Indian subcontinent, it is sometimes spelled Coat Peace, Kot Pees, Chokri, Chakri, Rung or Rang. Alternative names include Seven Hands, t'rup Chaal, and Hok. In the Dutch-speaking world, a similar game is known as Troefcall. In English the game is sometimes referred to simply as Trumps. As Satat, it is the most popular card game of Mauritius.
Basic rules
The game is played with a full standard deck of 52 cards by four players in fixed partnerships, sitting crosswise. Cards are dealt in batches of 5–3–3–2 or 5–4–2-2 or 5–4–4.The trump can be changed if a certain person from another team is not satisfied with trump. If so they have to make seven in a row or a court. But this can't be changed by the person who announced trump or their partner The player who sits after the dealer in the direction of play is known as trump-caller. Having received the first five cards, this player announces the trump suit. The other players are not allowed to look at their cards before the trump suit has been announced. The trump-caller leads to the first trick. In trick-play the normal whist rules apply: Players must follow suit if possible, and the highest trump, or the highest card of the suit led, takes the trick. To choose the highest card, the cards must be 10 and below. The winner of a trick leads to the next trick.
The party that wins seven or more tricks wins the hand and will usually stop the game at this point. Winning seven tricks in one go is a special achievement known as kot or kap. Player have to call first for Continuing afterwards and winning all tricks is a rare achievement known as a bavney or baunie. The Under-ten rule, if the trump-caller not holding any face card may call for re-deal when the first 5 cards are dealt. If a player has no face cards when all the cards are dealt, they may call for re-deal.
The first trump-caller is determined at random. The role of the trump-caller only passes on to the next player if the trump-caller's party did not win the hand.
No talking/communication between the team members is allowed in this game. If a player talks to their teammate then that suite belongs to the opponent.
There is a variation played only in North India, specially Delhi, where the only way one team member can communicate with the other, is by tapping the table called a 'thaap' intended to indicate to the team member to repeat the colour just played. This variation should be clarified before starting the game.
Scoring
In a simple scoring variant used in Iran, the winning party scores 1 point if the other team also won a trick, or 2 points for kot, or 3 points for hâkem koti, i.e. a kot achieved by the opponents of trump-caller.A scoring variant used in the Netherlands assigns 2 points to a simple win, 5 points to a kap and 15 points to a baunie. To score the 5 points for kap, the player who wins the seventh trick must stop the game at that point. If a party goes for baunie but loses a later trick, then it is only a single win of 2 points.
A scoring variant popular in India and Pakistan counts kots. Winning seven consecutive hands is equivalent to a kot. A single bavney counts as 52 kots. Each time the trump-caller's party scores a kot, the trump-caller's partner becomes trump-caller.
Minor variations and common games of ''Rang''
Sometimes the direction of play is clockwise.Instead of fixed partnerships, the partnerships may also be determined randomly. In this case the seating arrangement may have to be adjusted so that the players sit crosswise.
After all cards have been dealt, it may happen that trump-caller does not hold a single court card. In this case trump-caller may be allowed to announce a redeal. In another variation, trump-caller may call for a redeal if there is not court card among his or her first five cards, but may not do so more than twice in a row. Trump-caller's partner may also be allowed to announce that they do not hold a trump and suggest a redeal. The redeal only happens if trump-caller agrees.
Instead of making trumps, the trump-caller may be allowed to opt for a different procedure. In this case, trump-caller or dealer will turn up one of the remaining eight cards dealt to trump-caller for trumps, without looking at it first.
A party that fails to stop the play of the hand after winning the first seven tricks, but does not win all tricks, may score only a simple win of the hand rather than a kot. In this case, only the player who wins the seventh trick may have the right to stop the hand. The person showing his trumps should have the greatest card of Rang to win the trick.
In Pakistan and India, Rang is played with a lot of variations, all of them are based on rang, but categorized from simple to complex in the following order:
In some regions, the opponent can change the trump if they think they can win seven tricks in it. But if they fail to win seven tricks in a row, then it is called anti kot.
Single Sar
Single Sar is the easiest game of the Rang. Basic rules of the Rang are applied to this game as well, i.e., 52 cards deck, four players in fixed partnership, etc.. The cards are dealt in batches of 5-4-4, the trump-caller announces the Rang and starts the game with first trick. All of the players have to follow the suit, one with the highest-ranked card takes the trick ). If any of the player does not have the suit of the trick, he can play card from trump-suit, often referred to as kaat lagana. This word kaat lagana is Urdu and/or Hindi translation of cutting something, which herein implies cutting of running trick. The player/team with the highest Kaat takes the trick.At the end, the team with more winning tricks wins the game. If trump-caller's team remains the winner, the same dealer deals the cards again. On the other hand, if the dealing team takes more tricks, the deal is forwarded to the next player, that is, the trump-caller in previous game.
Double Sar
Double sar or double siri, also referred to as double rang or double rung, is the most commonly played game in India and Pakistan. It is a variant of Single Sar in which tricks are not automatically collected by their winner's party. Instead they form a heap in the middle between the players until one player wins two consecutive tricks, thereby winning the entire heap for his or her partnership. Basic rules of the Rang are applied to Double Sar as well. The winner of the last trick always picks up whatever remains in the heap at that point. Usually, the first collection of heap requires three tricks or five tricks must have been played already. Some variations of double sar forbid collecting the heap when a certain common game situation occurs, such as winning the first two tricks or winning two consecutive tricks with aces.Scoring is by kots and grand-kots. In this game a kot is defined as collecting all tricks by trump-caller team, which unlike bavney in standard court piece is realistically achievable. A grand-kot or goon-kot is defined as collection of all tricks ) by the dealing team. A goon-kot counts triple.
The decision of dealer for the first time is chosen randomly or toss using the deck. For every next turn, the result of the current game decides the dealer as well. In case of kot the next dealer is the opposite player of losing team. In case of grand-kot, the next dealer is the trump-caller. In all other cases, the team with less tricks deals the cards. The same player deals if the dealing team remains unable to win seven or more sars. The dealing is termed as pees, and considered to be hard work.
Winning seven hands in a row by collecting the majority of tricks is sometimes equivalent to a kot. The game is popular in India and Pakistan. Sar literally means head, but in this context refers to a trick.
Dummy Rang
Dummy Rang, mostly referred to as Dummy only, is a variant of Double Sir, which is played between three players instead of four as in common rang games. The fourth player is a dummy player, that is why this game is termed as Dummy. In every game, the dummy player is set to be the partner of one player, rotated counter clock-wise. The cards of the fourth player are placed face-up position, and partner of the dummy player is responsible of dummy's turn.Scoring is based on number of sars, it is counted for each individual player. One match ends when score reaches to 104.