How to Play Dehla Pakad

The goal of the game

There are exactly four 10s in the deck. Everything in Dehla Pakad revolves around them: your team wins a hand by capturing more tens than your opponents. High cards matter only because they let you win the tricks that contain tens.

What you need

• Four players in two fixed partnerships.
• One standard 52-card deck (no jokers).
• A way to keep score across several hands.

Teams and seating

Partners sit across the table from one another, so play alternates between the two teams. If the seats are numbered 1–4 clockwise, then 1 & 3 are partners and 2 & 4 are partners. You never see your partner’s hand — good partnership play comes from watching which cards they choose to play.

The deal

Shuffle and deal five cards to each player, one at a time. The other 32 stay face down for now — they are dealt only once trump has been revealed, which is why the opening tricks are played on a short hand. Taash deals this way, as the traditional game does.

Card ranking

Within every suit the order from highest to lowest is:

A > K > Q > J > 10 > 9 > 8 > 7 > 6 > 5 > 4 > 3 > 2

Note that the 10 is not promoted — it sits in its natural place between the Jack and the 9. It is valuable to capture, not powerful to play. An opponent’s Jack, Queen, King or Ace will beat your 10 in a trick.

How trump is decided

Nobody chooses trump in Dehla Pakad, and this is the rule that most surprises players coming from Court Piece or Spades. Trump is revealed during play: the first player who cannot follow the led suit sets it, and whatever suit they play right then becomes trump for the rest of the hand. A trump card beats any card of a non-trump suit, whatever the rank.

At the end of that trick the remaining eight cards are dealt to everyone, so the hand you finish with is not the hand you started with. If five tricks pass and nobody has gone off-suit, the rest is dealt anyway and the hand is played without trump. Since the player who runs out of a suit first is the one who sets trump, that choice can fall to you — the strategy guide covers which suit to reveal.

Playing a trick

1. The player to lead plays any card face up. Its suit is the “led suit”.
2. Going around the table, each player must follow suit — play a card of the led suit — if they hold one.
3. A player with no card of the led suit may play a trump or discard any other card.
4. The trick is won by the highest trump played. If nobody played a trump, it is won by the highest card of the led suit.
5. The winner of the trick leads the next one.

Capturing tens and winning the hand

Each trick a team wins is placed in front of that team. When all 13 tricks are done, count the tens: whichever team captured more 10s wins the hand. Capturing all four tens is a clean sweep and is usually worth extra in the match score.

How scoring works in this version

Dehla Pakad here is a match to 100, not a single hand. What a round pays depends only on how the four tens split, and the losing team scores nothing:

• 2–2 — 20 points. The tens are level, so the round goes to whichever team won more of the 13 tricks. It is never a draw: 13 is odd, so one side always leads.
• 3–1 — 30 points to the team with three.
• 4–0 — 80 points. Taking all four tens is a sweep, and it is most of a match in one round.

A round ends the moment its result is settled rather than when the cards run out, so hands are often swept away mid-play — once all four tens are accounted for and the trick count is beyond catching, there is nothing left to play for.

The back-to-back variant

Taash offers a second ruleset, chosen when you make the table. In back-to-back, winning a trick is not enough to collect its tens. Tricks stack up in the middle, and you take the pile only by winning two tricks in a row yourself. Your partner winning in between does not continue your run — the streak belongs to a player, not a team. Whoever wins the last trick of the round sweeps whatever is still sitting there.

Everything else is the same: deal five, trump revealed by the first off-suit play, the same 20/30/80 round values, the same match to 100. Tricks still count for the team that won them the moment they win them, so a 2–2 round is still decided on trick count. Only the tens wait to be caught.

It changes how a hand feels. A ten thrown onto a trick your partner is winning is no longer safe, because that trick may never be collected; and a pile three or four tricks deep makes the next trick worth far more than the one before it.

A quick worked example

Trump is spades. The lead is the 4♥. The next player follows with the 10♥ (they want that ten to end up with their side), the third player is void in hearts and cuts with the 2♠, and the fourth plays the K♥. The lone trump — the 2♠ — wins the trick, so that ten is captured by the third player’s team, not by the player who actually played it.

Common variations

• Trick minimum: some house rules require a team to win at least 7 of the 13 tricks in addition to holding more tens.
• Named trump: some groups have the first player call trump aloud after seeing their opening five cards, instead of letting the first off-suit play reveal it. Taash uses the revealed version.
• Sweep bonus (“kot”): taking all four tens counts as a double hand-win or ends the match immediately.

Once the rules click, the depth is all in the decisions — when to spend a high card, when to hold trump, and how to read your partner. Head to the strategy guide next.