Baloot rules

1.Players and cards

Baloot is played by four in two teams of two, partners sitting opposite each other, with a 32-card deck, seven to ace in each suit. Play goes counter-clockwise.

Each player first gets five cards and one card is turned face up. The player who buys it takes that card and the others get the rest of their eight cards.

2.Hokm and Sun

Each player in turn may buy the turned-up card as Hokm, a deal with trumps, or as Sun, a deal without trumps; Sun outranks Hokm. In Hokm the suit of the card is trump, or, in a second round, another suit the buyer names.

A Hokm deal is worth 16 game points and a Sun deal 26, before projects.

3.Card values

The last trick adds 10, so the cards of a Hokm deal are worth 162 points and those of a Sun deal 130.

4.Projects and the baloot

Players declare their sequences and four of a kind with the first card. Only the side with the best project scores its projects. In game points a project counts twice as much in Sun as in Hokm.

The king and queen of trumps in one hand are the baloot, 2 game points in Hokm that always stay with their holder and are never doubled.

5.Counting a deal

One side counts its card points and turns them into game points; the other side gets the rest. In Hokm the points are rounded to tens, a five rounding down, and divided by ten; in Sun they are rounded the same way and doubled, while a five is simply halved.

Normally the opponents of the buyer count. The buyer wins the deal by scoring more game points than the opponents, projects and baloot included; then each side scores its own. When the buyer scores less, the opponents take the whole deal: 16 or 26 with every project.

On equal game points the last digit of the counting side decides. In Hokm the counting side wins on 2 to 5, the buyer on 1 and on 6 to 0; in Sun a five goes to the buyer.

6.Kaboot

A side that takes every trick makes a kaboot: 25 game points in Hokm and 44 in Sun, plus its projects.

7.Double, three, four and gahwa

The opponents may double a deal; in Hokm the buyer may answer with a three, the opponents with a four, and the buyer with a gahwa. A Sun deal can only be doubled.

A doubled deal goes whole to the side that wins it: 16 or 26 times two, three or four, with the projects doubled and the baloot as it is. Whoever wins a gahwa wins the whole match.

8.Winning

The match is played to 152 game points. The first side past 152 wins; when both pass it in the same deal the higher score wins, and equal scores play another deal.

Tables differ on some details, such as who counts a doubled deal and how a tie is settled. The app follows the scoring described here.

9.Keeping the score in the app

After each deal tap “New round”, pick the side that bought, choose Hokm or Sun, mark a double, three, four or gahwa, count the projects and type the card points of one side; the app turns them into game points, spots a lost deal and keeps track of who deals.

Tap any deal in the history to correct or delete it, and ↶ to undo the last one.