Baloot

Players and equipment

Four players, in two fixed partnerships, sitting opposite your partner. You need a 32-card pack: a standard deck with the twos up to sixes taken out, keeping seven up to ace in each suit. Trumps rank jack, nine, ace, ten, king, queen, eight, seven, highest to lowest; every other suit ranks ace, ten, king, queen, jack, nine, eight, seven; and a run you're holding in hand ranks the ordinary way, ace down to seven.

Jack of trumps

20

highest card in play

Nine of trumps

14

second highest

Ace of trumps

11

-

Ten of trumps

10

-

King of trumps

4

-

Queen of trumps

3

-

Eight and seven of trumps

0

worth nothing

Ace of a plain suit

11

highest of its suit

Ten of a plain suit

10

-

King of a plain suit

4

-

Queen of a plain suit

3

-

Jack of a plain suit

2

-

Nine, eight and seven of a plain suit

0

worth nothing

A hand played with a trump suit has 162 card points once you add the ten for winning the last trick; a hand with no trumps has 130.

The deal

Pick the first dealer however you like; after that the deal, the bidding and the play all move to the right. Shuffle, offer the cards to your left for a cut, and deal five cards to each player in two packets — three, then two — starting right of the dealer and finishing with the dealer. Turn the next card face up on the table, the exposed card, and leave the rest of the pack face down until the bidding is settled.

Once the bidding decides who takes the exposed card, finish the deal: that player gets two more cards, everyone else gets three, and every hand ends at eight cards. If everybody passes twice over, once in each round of bidding, the hand is thrown in with no score, and the deal passes to the right.

Play

Whoever sits to the dealer's right always leads the first trick, whoever ends up declaring. Bidding opens there too, and runs to the right. On your turn, pass, or bid Hokum (the exposed card's suit becomes trumps) or Sun (no trumps, worth more at the end). Sun can overtake a Hokum bid from anyone at the table, even someone who already passed; if more than one wants it, priority goes to whichever of them sits earliest in rotation from the dealer's right, not whoever actually spoke first. If everybody passes on the first round, Hokum names a different suit the second time round and Sun still beats it — but nobody who already passed this round may call Sun now. The third and fourth players alone, once everybody ahead of them has passed, have one more call: Ashkal, which works like Sun except it's the bidder's partner, not the bidder, who takes the exposed card and declares. Whoever wins the bidding takes the exposed card as one of their two extra.

Before the first card is led, with a Hokum bid standing, either of the declaring side's opponents may call Double. The declaring side can answer Triple, the doublers Quadruple, and the declaring side has one last word, Gahwa — win the hand after a Gahwa call and your side takes the whole match on the spot, whatever the running score stood at. Double also lets the doublers say whether play is locked, banning anyone without an all-trump hand from leading a trump; a Quadruple chooses again, and a hand left at Triple or Gahwa is always open. Sun can only be doubled, and only once one side already has more than 100 points and the other fewer — no Triple, Quadruple, Gahwa or locking without a trump suit to lock.

Follow suit if you can. In a Sun hand, if you can't, play anything. A Hokum hand is stricter. When a trump is led you must play a higher trump than the best one in the trick if you can, unless your partner is winning it. Unable to follow a plain suit, you must trump whenever an opponent is winning the trick, beating any trump already in it if you can, and may play anything if you can't; when your partner is winning you may play anything, except that the leader's partner must still trump if the lead was a plain card below the ace and the leader did not call Ekka, claiming it as the top card left in its suit. The highest trump played wins a trick; failing that, the highest card of the suit led does, and the winner leads next.

Each player may declare one project — a run of three, four or five in one suit, or four aces, kings, queens, jacks or tens — at their turn to the first trick, naming only the type, and the top card if two tie on type. One side declaring is the only one that can score; two sides declaring, the better project wins the right for its whole side and the other's counts for nothing. At the second trick the winning side lays its project face up, a second one too if they hold it, and their partner may show anything they're holding as well, declared or not. The Baloot — the king and queen of trumps, held by one player — stands apart from all of this: either side may show and score it, whoever has it and however the projects came out.

Scoring

A round on the sheet is one hand. Once a hand is finished, the table works out how many game points it was worth to each side, and each side enters its own share in its own column — never its new running total, which the sheet adds up for you. SquareScores deals no cards and sees none of the bidding, the play or the projects — it only reads the two numbers you type in once the hand is over.

A plain Hokum hand is worth 16 game points between the two sides, split by how the card points fell. Only one side counts: the declaring side's opponents, or after a Double or Quadruple the declaring side, or after a Triple the opponents again. The counting side's card points round to the nearest ten (a five rounding down) and divide by ten, and the other side keeps the rest of the 16. A plain Sun hand is worth 26, split the same way, except that the card points round to the nearest ten unless they end in five, which stay as they are, and then divide by five; Sun has no Baloot, having no trump suit to hold it in.

Add any Baloot and projects on top for whoever showed them. If the declaring side then has fewer game points than their opponents, they lose the lot: the other side takes every point in the hand, the declaring side's own projects and Baloot included, and the declaring side enters zero. A tie goes to whichever side lost more card points in the rounding — in Hokum the counting side wins a tie if its card points ended in 2 to 5 and loses it if they ended in 6 to 0; in Sun it wins if they ended in 1 to 4 and loses if they ended in 6 to 9 — and otherwise to the declaring side.

A double, triple, quadruple or Gahwa changes what's at stake, not how the points get shared out: a double is worth 32 in Hokum or 52 in Sun, a triple 48, a quadruple 64 (Sun allows no triple or quadruple at all). Whoever ends up ahead on the split takes every point at stake — cards, projects doubled (never multiplied further by a triple or quadruple), and a Baloot at its plain 2 — and the loser enters zero. Winning every trick in the hand, Al-kaboot, is worth 25 in Hokum or 44 in Sun instead of the usual total, plus the winning side's own projects. The sheet can't take a Gahwa win on its own terms, so after one, enter for the winning side whatever brings their line to 152, and zero for the other.

Hokum hand, no double

16

base game points at stake

Sun hand, no double

26

base game points at stake

Doubled Hokum hand

32

base game points at stake

Winning every trick (Al-kaboot), Hokum

25

instead of the usual 16

Winning every trick (Al-kaboot), Sun

44

instead of the usual 26

The Baloot, king and queen of trumps

2

scored by whoever holds it

Four kings, queens, jacks or tens, or a run of five

10

Hokum hand

Four kings, queens, jacks or tens, or a run of five

20

Sun hand

Four aces

10

Hokum hand

Four aces

40

Sun hand

A run of four

5

Hokum hand

A run of four

10

Sun hand

A run of three, a Siri

2

Hokum hand

A run of three, a Siri

4

Sun hand

A worked example

Three hands, East–West and North–South trading the bid:

Hand one — East–West bid Hokum, North–South's card points round to 7

7

the non-bidders' share of the 16

Hand one — East–West's share, the rest of the 16

9

the declaring side kept at least half, bid made

Hand two — North–South bid Hokum, East–West's card points round to 9, more than half

16

North–South's bid falls short, East–West take the whole hand

Hand two — North–South's missed bid

0

nothing left to enter

Hand three — East–West bid again, North–South doubles; East–West (now counting) round to 7, North–South keep the rest

32

North–South win the double outright

After these three hands East–West's line reads 25 (9, 16, 0) and North–South's reads 39 (7, 0, 32), on the way to the match's 152.

Ending

Keep dealing until one side's line reaches 152 or more; then the side with the higher line has won the match. A hand won after a Gahwa call ends the match outright on the spot, whatever either side's line read beforehand. End match is any player's tap once a side is ahead; there's no button to open the next one, because the next match deals itself in.

Don't bid Hokum on a weak trump suit

The jack and nine are worth more in the trump suit than anywhere else in the pack, so five or six trumps headed by either is worth bidding alone. Only three or four, with nothing high among them, is usually safer left to Sun or passed.

Count card points, not tricks

The bid rests on taking at least half the hand's card points, not the most tricks — three tricks of aces and the trump jack can beat five tricks of small cards. Add up roughly what your hand is worth before you bid.

Think twice before doubling a weak-looking bid

A Double raises the stakes for both sides, and locking can trap your own trumps as easily as theirs. Only double when you're confident the declaring side is short of half the points.

Let your project say something, not just score

A project declared at the first trick tells your partner real information before a card of it is played, and a weak declaration can hand the whole contest to the other side. Hold off unless you're sure it's the best one at the table.

Annulling a hopeless hand

Some tables let a player whose first five cards are nothing but nines, eights and sevens annul the deal, during the first round of bidding — a Kawesh or Saneen. Nobody scores, and the next dealer deals.

A different way to cut

Instead of a cut, some groups have the player to the dealer's left shuffle once, turn the top card face up as the exposed card, then take the next three cards, unseen, for themselves, or the bottom three, unseen, for themselves or their partner. The dealer finishes the deal as usual.

Trump sequences break project ties

Some tables rule that when two sides' runs are the same length with the same top card, differing only in suit, a run in trumps beats one in a plain suit; if neither is in trumps, the earlier-declared one still wins.

Ashkal in the second round too

A few groups, especially in Riyadh, let the third and fourth players call Ashkal in the second round too — some use it to signal which suit they're strong in.

How many cards do you deal in Baloot?

Eight each, dealt in two parts. Everybody gets five cards before the bidding starts, then the player who wins it gets two more and everyone else gets three, so all four hands end at eight.

What's the difference between Hokum and Sun in Baloot?

Hokum means a trump suit and Sun means none at all, with the highest card of the suit led always winning a Sun trick and a Sun hand worth more at the end, 26 against Hokum's 16; Hokum's trump suit is the exposed card's, or another suit named in the second round of bidding.

What is the Baloot itself, the combination the game is named after?

It's the king and queen of trumps, held together in one player's hand, worth 2 game points to whoever holds it, scored separately from projects. It can only exist in a Hokum hand — Sun has no trump suit for it to live in.

What happens if every player passes in both rounds of bidding?

The hand is thrown in. Nobody scores anything, the cards are gathered up, and the deal passes to the right as usual.

What does Al-kaboot mean in Baloot?

It's winning all eight tricks in a single hand, worth 25 game points in Hokum or 44 in Sun instead of the usual 16 or 26, with the losing side scoring nothing that hand.

Can one hand decide the whole match in Baloot?

Yes, under a Gahwa call. Win the hand and your side takes the entire match on the spot, no matter what either side's line read going into it — the only way a single hand ends the game outright.