The rules of hokm
As this game plays them, house rules included.
If you have never held a card, the school inside the game will teach you all of this in nine short lessons. This page is the same thing in writing, for anyone who would rather read.
The table
Four players, two sides
Four people sit around the table. The player facing you is your partner, and the two beside you are your opponents. You and your partner win or lose together.
One pack
Fifty-two cards in four suits of thirteen. In every suit the ace is the biggest, then the king, the queen and the jack, and then the numbers from ten down to two.
To the right
Both the deal and the play go around the table to the right.
The hakem and the hokm
The first hakem
Before the first round, cards are turned up one at a time around the table. Whoever gets the first ace is the hakem.
Five cards
Each player is dealt five cards. The hakem looks at their five and names a suit. That suit is the hokm for the whole round, and it beats the other three.
The other eight
The remaining cards are dealt four at a time, until everyone holds thirteen.
The next hakem
The hakem stays the hakem for as long as their side keeps winning rounds. When their side loses a round, the player on the hakem's right takes over.
A trick
The lead
The hakem leads the first trick of a round with any card. After that, whoever took the last trick leads the next one.
Follow suit
If you hold a card of the suit that was led, you must play one. This is the one rule that can never be bent.
Cutting
If you have no card of that suit, you may play a hokm card, which is called cutting, or throw away a card of any other suit.
Who takes it
If no one cut, the biggest card of the suit that was led takes the trick. If someone did, the biggest hokm card takes it.
Counting
A round
The first side to take seven tricks wins the round, and the round ends there.
Kot
Seven tricks to none is a kot. It counts as two rounds instead of one.
Kot on the hakem
If the side left with nothing is the hakem's own, it counts as three.
The game
The first side to reach seven rounds wins the game.
The house rules
Every table in Iran has rules of its own. These are the ones this game plays by.
The partner's middle
Instead of naming a suit, the hakem may call partner's middle. The third card dealt to the hakem's partner is laid face up on the table, and its suit becomes the hokm. The card stays there for everyone to see until the partner picks it up or plays their first card. This rule is on unless the table switches it off.
Coming early
Once a trick has been led, you may lay your card face down before your turn. The others see only its back. When your turn comes, it turns over and is played. Until then you may take it back. After coming early, you must wait three tricks before doing it again.
Leading a run
If it is your lead and you hold the ace, king and queen of a suit that is not the hokm, you may play all three at once. In the hokm suit you may play any two or more from the top of what is left. The others answer one trick at a time, as usual, so a run in an ordinary suit can still be cut.
Tea
Each player may ask for one tea break per game. If no one at the table says no, the game pauses when the trick is over and the storyteller tells the next chapter.
Throwing things
You may throw a tomato, a slipper, a rose and many other things at another player's portrait, a few times each trick. Everyone sees it land, and no one is told who threw it.
A deal no one can choose
Before each round, every player's phone picks a number and shows only its fingerprint. Once all four fingerprints are out, the pack is shuffled using the four numbers together. No one, not even the server, can choose the deal. When the round ends the numbers are revealed, and every phone shuffles and deals again to check that the round it played was the round that was dealt.
The words
Hakem
The player who calls the hokm and leads the first trick.
Hokm
The suit that beats the other three for the round. The game is named after it.
Trick
Four cards in the middle, one from each player. The biggest takes them all.
Round
Seven tricks to one side.
Kot
Seven tricks to none.
To cut
To play a hokm card on a trick led in another suit.