Dayous - a card game forked from the Russian game дурак / durak

Etymology

The word dayous comes from the Farsi word (definition here).

Objective

Dayous is a 2–8 player game using one or more decks of poker cards. A game lasts from 5 minutes (2 players, 1 deck) to an hour (5 players, 2 decks). The goal is simple: don’t be the last person holding cards. If you are, you’re the dayous.

Key Rules

• A (highest) -> 2 (lowest)
• One suit is chosen as the trump suit for the first half of the game. A new trump suit is selected for the second half. Cards in the trump suit are always higher than cards not in the trump suit.
  • For example, if diamond is the trump suit, then the order is A :diamonds: > K :diamonds: > ... > 2 :diamonds: > ... > A :spades: :clubs: :hearts: > ... > 2 :spades: :clubs: :hearts:

Initial setup

Dealing cards

• Each player gets 7 cards if using 1 deck or 10 cards if using 2 or more decks.

Drawing the first trump suit

• Place the remaining cards face down and split evenly into 2 decks.
• Flip the top card of one deck to determine the trump suit.
• Place this deck under the other deck, with the flipped card sticking out face up.

Deciding the first player

• The player with the lowest card in the trump suit starts. If there’s a tie, the next lowest card decides.
• The starting player also sets the play direction (clockwise or counterclockwise).

Gameplay

Attacking

• The attacker plays 1 or more cards of the same rank (number on the card) against the next player.

Defending (colloquially: responding to reviewers' questions)

The defender has 3 options: - Pass: Put down one (or more) card of the same rank as the attacking card(s) to pass them to the next player. - Note: if the number of cards to be passed is more than the number of cards the next player has, then the cards cannot be passed. - Defend: Play a higher card of the same suit or a trump card (higher trump cards are needed to defend against trump card attacks). Once defending starts, passing is no longer allowed. - Use a joker: Pass the attack back to the original attacker and reverse the play direction. The joker then goes to the discard pile. - Note: if there is more than 1 rank of cards on the table, jokers cannot be used.

Additional attacks (colloquially: asking questions)

• Other players can join the attack by playing cards matching ranks already on the table. The total attacks cannot exceed the defender’s hand size.
  • Example: if the person is attacked with a 5 of diamond and they respond with a 9 of diamond, then other players can put down 5 and 9 of any suit.

Responding to attacks

• If the defender cannot handle all attacks, they take all table cards into their hand and lose their next turn as the attacker.
• If the defender successfully defends, all table cards go to the discard pile, and the defender becomes the next attacker.

Refill hands

At the end of the round, each person needs to have at least 7 cards (10 cards for 2+ decks). If they don't have enough cards, they have to draw from the deck in order to have 7 cards (10 cards for 2+ decks).

Change of the trump suit

• When the flipped trump card reaches the top of the deck, a new trump suit is chosen randomly.
• After everyone finishes refilling their hands, flip the top card to determine the trump suit for the second half.

Endgame

• Once the deck is empty, players can no longer draw cards, and the endgame starts
• The game ends when only one player still has cards, making them the dayous.

Common terminology

• No further questions: use this term to signal the defender that you don't have additional attacks for them (source: lawyers telling the judge they don't have further questionns for the witness).
• Did somebody say <any card already on the table>: use this term to signal the defender that you are about to attack.
• Can I not attack: someone might say this either when they have an extremely good hand (then by attacking, they will be wasting their good defending card) or when they pretend to have an extremely good hand.
• Moving the field forward / being prosocial: trying hard to respond to all the incoming attacks and move the cards to the discard pile (otherwise the same cards will be used to attack over and over again; i.e. the field is not going forward).
• Contribution: the number of cards going to the discard pile after a successful defense.
  • 2 cards: Journal of Vision
  • 4 cards: PLoS ONE
  • 6 cards: Cognition
  • 8 cards: PNAS
  • 10 cards: Science
  • 12+ cards: Nature
• Publication fee: the number of high cards (e.g. face cards and trump cards) used for defending a round of attacks.