How to play Court Piece (Rung)

Court Piece is a trick-taking card game for four players in two fixed partnerships, played across South Asia and the Gulf under a long list of names — rung, rang, coat piece, hokm. The rules below are the standard ruleset: the one RUNG deals by default, and the one almost everyone means when they say "court piece".

If you have ten minutes and three friends, you know enough by the end of this page to play a real hand.

What you need

• A standard 52-card deck. No jokers. Cards rank from Ace high down to 2 low, in every suit.
• Four players, two teams. Partners sit opposite each other, never side by side. Turn order therefore alternates: you, an opponent, your partner, the other opponent.
• No talking about your cards. No signals, no hints, no "I'm out of hearts". Everything your partner learns, they learn from the cards you choose to play. This is most of the skill in the game.

The deal

Court Piece is dealt in a way that looks odd the first time you see it, and the reason becomes obvious in a moment: the trump suit is chosen before most of the cards are out.

1. Pick a dealer. Dealing goes to the dealer's right, and so does play.
2. Deal five cards to each player, one packet at a time, starting with the player to the dealer's right.
3. That player — the hakam, or trump caller — looks at their five cards and names the rung (the trump suit).
4. Deal the rest in packets of four, then four, until everybody holds thirteen cards.

So the caller commits to a trump suit knowing only five of their own thirteen cards, and nothing about anyone else's. They are betting on a suit and hoping the next eight cards agree with them.

Calling the rung (the trump suit)

The called suit outranks all three other suits for the entire hand. The lowest trump beats the Ace of every other suit. There is no bidding, no auction, no contract — one player simply says "hearts", and hearts it is.

How to choose, with five cards in your hand:

• Count length before strength. Four small hearts is usually a better rung than two high spades. Length is what lets you keep winning tricks after the Aces are gone.
• Three is the normal minimum. With no suit of three or more, you are choosing between bad options — take the one with the highest cards and plan to play defensively.
• Remember your partner is dealt thirteen cards too. You are not calling for your own hand alone; you are calling for the partnership.

Some tables let the caller demand a redeal if their five cards contain no court card (no Jack, Queen, King or Ace). Agree on it before you start.

Playing a trick

The trump caller leads the first trick. After that, whoever won the last trick leads the next one.

Each of the four players plays one card, in turn, to the right. Then:

• You must follow suit if you can. If hearts were led and you hold any heart at all, you must play a heart. This is the one hard restriction in Court Piece, and the game is unrecognisable without it.
• If you are void in the led suit, you may play anything — a trump to try to win the trick, or any junk card to throw the trick away.
• The highest card of the led suit wins — unless at least one trump was played, in which case the highest trump wins.

A trump only beats the led suit when the player was out of the led suit. You can never trump a trick you were able to follow.

In the standard game — single sir — the winning side immediately collects the four cards and stacks them face down. One trick, one sir, counted at the end.

Winning the hand

Thirteen tricks are available, so somebody must reach seven. The first partnership to win seven tricks wins the hand and scores a point (traditionally called a court). The remaining tricks are not played out — except in one case, below.

There is a neat consequence in who deals next: if the calling team wins the hand, the same player calls the rung again. A strong caller on a hot streak keeps the trump suit in their hands hand after hand. Only when the calling team loses does the deal move on.

Kot, and why a decided hand sometimes keeps going

Winning all thirteen tricks is a kot (also kote or coat — the name the whole game is sometimes called by). It is the big score in Court Piece and it is worth double.

Which is why a hand does not always stop at seven: if one side has taken seven tricks and the other side still has zero, the hand continues, because a sweep is still live. The moment the trailing team wins a single trick, the kot is dead and the hand ends. Take all thirteen and you have the sweep — in RUNG that is two points, and since a match is two points, a kot wins the match outright.

Match length

That makes a typical RUNG match two or three hands — around five to ten minutes. Around a real table people often play to an agreed number of courts, or simply until the tea runs out.

A worked hand

You are dealt ♠A ♠9 ♠4 ♥K ♣7 as the first five, and you are the caller.

Three spades including the Ace is a comfortable call: spades is the rung. Your next eight cards arrive and you finish with four spades, four hearts, three diamonds and two clubs.

1. Trick 1. You lead ♠A. Everyone follows with small spades. You take it — and you have learned that nobody at the table was short of spades.
2. Trick 2. You lead ♥K. The player on your right plays ♥A and wins. Expensive, but now you know where the heart Ace lives.
3. Trick 3. They lead ♦Q. You are out of diamonds, so you are free: you drop ♠4, the smallest trump you own, and win the trick with it. A four beating a Queen is the whole game in one card.
4. Trick 7. Your partner leads a suit you are void in. You play low rather than trumping, because your partner's card is already winning — never trump your own partner's trick.
5. Trick 9. Your side takes its seventh trick. Hand over, one point. The opposition has three tricks, so no kot was ever on. You deal — no wait, you called and you won, so you call again.

Five mistakes every new player makes

• Spending trumps early. Trumps are not for winning tricks you were going to win anyway. They are for the trick you cannot otherwise touch.
• Trumping your partner's winner. Look at the cards on the table before you play. If your partner is already taking it, a trump from you wins the same trick and costs you a trump.
• Calling a four-card suit with no high cards and no plan. Length matters, but four low cards in the rung with nothing above a seven is a hand you have to defend, not attack with.
• Forgetting who is void. When somebody fails to follow a suit, they are out of it — for the rest of the hand. That single fact is worth more than any card you hold.
• Leading your partner's weak suit. If they showed out of clubs on trick two, stop leading clubs.

Strategy that actually works

• Count the rung. Thirteen trumps exist. Track how many have been played; whoever still holds one at trick eleven controls the end of the hand.
• Lead long, keep short. Lead from your longest non-trump suit to force out high cards, and hold your short suits so you can start trumping sooner.
• Signal with the cards you discard. The card you throw away when you are void is a message. Throw high in the suit you want your partner to lead back.
• Play the kot or kill the kot. Once you are at six tricks to zero, play for the sweep. Once you are at zero to six, your only job is one trick.

House rules you will run into

Almost nobody plays only the standard rules. The three you will meet most often:

• Double Sir — won tricks stay in the middle until one side wins two in a row and takes the pile.
• Band Hukam — the caller keeps the trump suit secret until the first trump is played.
• Free-for-all — follow suit is dropped entirely. Fun, chaotic, and not really Court Piece.

Each one is explained properly, with the exact rule RUNG enforces, on the rules and variants page. Unsure what a word at the table means? The glossary has it.