Full guide: the goal, attack and defence, trumps, the signature transfer of the attack to your neighbour, throwing in cards, drawing cards, controls on muta.pro and tips for beginners. Read it and head straight to the table.
Durak Transfer is a popular variant of Durak whose main feature is transferring the attack to the next player. The goal is the same: be the first to get rid of all your cards in hand. The loser — the «durak» — is the one left with cards last, once the deck has been used up. The transfer makes the game faster and more cunning: the attack can travel around the circle before anyone starts defending.
📖 We break down every disputed situation in detail in our blog article: Transfer Durak: rules and tricky situations explained.
Played with a deck of 36 cards. Each player is dealt 6 cards. The bottom card of the deck is revealed and sets the trump suit — a trump beats any non-trump card. The player with the lowest trump in hand goes first, then the right to attack passes around the circle. After each round everyone draws cards up to six until the deck runs out.
The attacker places a card on the table (or several cards of the same rank). The defender must beat each one with a higher card of the same suit or with any trump.
While you have not beaten anything yet, you can choose not to defend but to transfer the attack to the next player by adding a card of the same rank as the one on the table. Now your neighbour defends.
Once defence has begun, other players can throw in cards of the ranks already on the table. The defender will have to beat them too.
Beaten everything — the cards go to the discard pile, the turn passes on. Couldn’t or didn’t want to — the player takes all the cards from the table.
The transfer — is the heart of this variant. If you are attacked with, say, a jack and you also have a jack in hand — lay it on top, and the attack moves to the next player, now with two cards. This way the attack can be «transferred» down the chain until someone runs out of suitable ranks. An important condition: you can transfer only before you have beaten the first card — once you start defending, you can no longer transfer the round.
Throwing in cards works as in the throw-in variant: while defence is under way, opponents add cards of the ranks already on the table, increasing the pressure on the defender. The number of cards thrown in is usually limited by the number of cards in the defender’s hand — no more than they can beat is thrown in.
Key situations at the table. The trump in these examples is hearts ♥, so hearts beat any other suit. Cards with a gold frame are trumps; the highlight marks the key card of the move.
Don’t spend high trumps on small cards — save them to fend off a heavy attack or to transfer it further.
You can transfer only before the first beaten card. Keep paired ranks to quickly shove the attack onto your neighbour.
Remember how many trumps have already come out. When opponents have none left, your ordinary cards become unbeatable.
Sometimes it’s better to «take» a small round than to waste valuable cards. An extra handful at the end of the game is the road to the title of durak.
The first round of Pass-along Durak sets the tone for the whole game, and you should play it differently from the middle. While the deck is full, every card you spend is instantly replaced by drawing back up to six — so early rounds are cheap, and this is the best time to shed ballast and probe your opponents' hands. The rule is simple: early on, don't be stingy on defence, but don't lay down trumps either — you'll need them once the deck runs dry.
An early attack with a low card isn't worth a trump. If you can beat it with a lower card of the same suit — do so; a trump in the first round is almost always overvalued.
Scattered middling cards (jacks, unpaired tens) are easy to offload into defence or throwing-in early on. By the end of the deck they are harder to get rid of.
If a neighbour trumped a six in the very first round, they most likely have a weak hand with no low cards. That's a hint about whom to pass to later.
A separate word on passing in the opening: it is available from the very first round, but you should use it cautiously early on. Sending an attack around the table is satisfying, but while every hand is full, your neighbour will almost certainly pass it on — and it may come back to you grown larger. An early pass is justified only when it unloads a card you would otherwise have to beat at a high cost.
Every time an attack reaches you, there are three responses, and what separates an experienced player from a beginner is exactly how quickly and correctly they choose between them. Passing is possible only before the first card is beaten — as soon as you start beating, the door closes and you can only keep beating or take. That is why the decision to pass is made in the very first second of the round, before any defence.
The easiest way to think about it: pass — if you have a matching rank and a target, beat — if it's cheap, take — if defending would wreck your hand. Passing with a card of the same rank sends the attack on to your neighbour without spending a single strong card.
Passing with a card of the same rank: onto the 6♦ we place our 6♣, and the attack — now two sixes — rolls on to the neighbour, while a third 6♠ could continue the chain further around the table.
The defence decision almost always comes down to a single question: what the round will cost you. Beating is cheap when you hold a suitable lower card of the same suit; then you close the attack without spending anything valuable. As soon as you have to reach for a high trump or the only king of the needed suit, beating stops being profitable, and passing or taking come to the fore. Don't defend "on autopilot" just because you can — first weigh the price.
Picking up a small round early in the deck costs almost nothing: you draw straight back up to six. Taking is only expensive in the endgame, when there is no more drawing.
If the only way to beat is with a high trump or the king of the needed suit, while passing costs a low pair — it is almost always better to pass and save the strong card.
Passing closes the moment you beat even one card. So weigh all three options in the first second of the round, not halfway through the defence.
By muta.pro rules, you may pass with any card of the same rank lying on the table — including a trump. A trump pass is almost impossible to beat cheaply: to cover it, your neighbour needs a higher trump of the same suit, and one trump of that move is already yours. But the weapon has a price: in a pass the table doesn't go to the discard, it travels on, which means you give up a trump for free, without taking a single enemy card.
Trump is hearts ♥. We pass the 9♠ with our trump 9♥: the neighbour has nothing to cover it cheaply, but the trump is gone with no capture — a finishing move, not a routine one.
So a trump pass is justified only in two situations: when you go out of the game with this very move (the trump would have been surplus anyway), or when the pass finishes off an opponent who has two or three cards in hand and cannot accept the enlarged attack. In all other cases a low trump is more valuable as insurance against an enemy attack in the finale — don't trade your defence for dubious tempo.
The number of players reshapes the role of passing entirely. One on one there is almost no one to pass to: the attack returns straight to the same opponent, and no chain forms. At a two-player table, passing is a rare tactical trick, not the backbone of the game; here everything is decided by the trump count and precise defence. The more players there are, the longer the passing chain and the more it matters whom exactly you aim it at.
The prime candidate for the fool is whoever took a big round and hasn't unloaded. Drive the attack around by passing until it reaches them: the longer the chain, the more cards they get if they fail to beat.
Before passing, gauge whether the next player has a card of the same rank. If three cards of the rank have already gone, the fourth is almost certainly not with them — the pass is safe.
A trump pass onto the player who will attack you next is a gift to your opponent: the trump they beat with will land on your hand the very next round.
At a full table the order of play matters too: a pass hands the defender's role strictly to the next player around the circle, and only if they have enough cards to accept the enlarged attack. You cannot pass "over" a neighbour or onto an arbitrary opponent — plan the chain in advance, knowing who sits after you.
Finally, at a big table reading the table as a team works more strongly, even when everyone plays for themselves. If one player is clearly close to going out, it doesn't pay for the others to pass the attack past them — it's far more useful to load up whoever's hand has swollen. Keep in mind not only your own hand but also how many cards each neighbour has left: against a player with two or three cards, a short passing chain is often more important than a tidy defence, since they simply can't accept the enlarged attack and will be forced to take.