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vkbl111's Durak(Idiot) (Other)
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| [February 5, 2013 10:09:11 AM]
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Durak(Idiot) Games 1 and 2. Played January 16th.
Durak(Translates from Russian approximately to Idiot) is a competitive 2 to 4 player card game. The goal of the game is to get rid of all the cards in the deck, and then your hand, while at the same time attempting to make your opponents take in as many cards as possible. The loser is declared Durak (Idiot).
=Players=
There have to be at least 2 and at most 4 players to play idiot. The more players there are the shorter the game usually lasts due to the constant size of the game deck. Usually the person providing the deck is the initial Dealer, and the winner of a game is usually declared as the new dealer.
=The Deck=
The game is played with a standard Russian deck of cards. Often when cards are bought in the Ex-Soviet Union the deck comes with cards of 4 suits: Club, Hearts, Diamonds, and Spades, and with cards going from 6 to Ace.
=The Game=
The deck is shuffled. The dealer initially deals six cards to each player. After the cards are dealt, the top card on the deck is removed and flipped and placed under the deck with part of it sticking out. The suit of the card is the Kozir(translated to something along the lines of a Trump suit). The player with the lowest value of trump card goes first and places a card down. If they have two of the same value they are allowed to place two cards. The person to the right is then to defeat these cards with either a card of the same suit of a higher value, or a trump suit card (even a trump 6 can beat a regular ace, yet trump cards can only be beaten with trump cards of a higher value). If the person that went has a card that the previous cards were defeated with they can then place them down to make the person to the right beat them again. If the person who was "attacked" cannot beat any of the cards they were "attacked" with they are to take the cards they were attacked with in addition to the cards they defended with. If they defeat the cards they were attacked with the cards are sent to Otboi(Knock out). If after the turn any player has less than six cards they are to draw from the deck until they own six cards if the number of cards in the deck allows it. The turn then goes to the player on the right of the attacker. The player that gets rid of all their cards first wins the game.
=Game Play=
First Session:
We played with 4 people for the first session, 3 long time players and a new player. After explaining the rules to the new player and playing a test game we played for some tokens, we used bottle caps in place of money.
I was named the dealer since I brought the card deck with me to the game session. I dealt the cards to all the players, myself last, and then flipped the top card to determine that Diamonds was the trump suit for this game. I happened to have a 7 of diamonds, which turned out to be the lowest trump, so I went first. The newbie player was the one who was defending, and ended up defeating my single card fairly easily, though she did have to sacrifice a higher value club to defeat my measly 8 of clubs.
After a few turns one of the older players was choosing to not defeat cards they were attacked with and as a result hoarding a large amount of cards. This is a common strategy I have often used that allows you after a chosen point, often when there are no cards left to draw from the deck, to start attacking with pairs and triples of cards and tossing in cards of same value as ones defended with. This can often overwhelm a player towards the end of the game since they have used most of their trumps and higher value cards. It is a risky maneuver since a player can defeat all your cards and exit the game and win, with you left with a large amount of cards as the loser.
The newbie player did not realize this strategy, and fell into the older players trap. The older player ended up using all their cards and forcing the newbie to take in all those cards. After that 3 of us were left to decide who was second. I had been hoarding trump cards, and was left with only them. This is another strategy I have seen throughout the years I have played this game, and mostly depends on luck of the draw to get a large amount of trump cards. I went with just the trump cards, and since they cannot be defeated with anything other than higher value trump cards, I quickly exited the game and was declared second place winner. The two other players were labeled Durak(Idiot).
Both of these strategies used by the older player and myself show the definite lean of this game towards experienced players, even when luck is such a big part of the game. I have seen a newbie win before, based on luck alone, but it is not common. There are many strategies that players come up with after having experience with the game.
Second Session:
The second game was played right after the end of the first game, this time just between the experienced player that won the first game and me. A two player game is usually more intense and longer since the cards in the deck do not get exhausted as quickly. The other player was the dealer since he won the previous game. The trump suit came out to be Hearts.
Since the player and I have both been playing the game for at least 10 years, the game was leaning even more on strategy than luck of the draw. Neither of us used the hoarding techniques we used in the previous game. There was a balance of attacking with too many cards and attempting to defend unsuccessfully since it showed the other player the cards you would have. I tried very hard to remember every card that I had seen that the other player had. In the end the player outwitted my by baiting my trump cards with his high value cards such as Kings and Queens. He then proceeded to make me pick up cards by going with first his high cards, and then trump cards in ascending order to not give me a chance to defend his future attacks with cards he made me pick up. Needless to say I lost and was labeled Durak.
This game displayed the need strategy even more. It demonstrated a strategy of being careful of what cards you let the opponent pick up to defend yourself in the future, as well as a memory of what cards the opponent has picked up. This is usually seen more in 2 player games, as well as games with experienced players. Luck has even less of an influence on an outcome when its two experienced players playing a pre-decided strategy.
=Overall=
Durak is a fun and fairly simple card game, even though strategy is often used by experienced players. It is heavily unbalanced towards experienced players, and often requires many sessions to understand all the nuances and strategies used in the game. This game has been played for many years in many Eastern European countries and is a blast when playing with friends, even if just for the chance to label them Idiot.
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vkbl111's Durak(Idiot) (Other)
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Current Status: Playing
GameLog started on: Wednesday 16 January, 2013
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