Hokm: Card Game of Kings

Hokm is the card game Iran plays: four players, two partnerships sitting across from each other, one pack, and a hakem who names the trump. This Hokm is painted like the coffeehouse pictures of the Shahnameh. The four suits are the four houses of King Fereydun's family: hearts for Iraj, diamonds for Fereydun, spades for Tur and clubs for Salm. The table is the world he divided between his sons. HOW IT PLAYS The hakem sees five cards and calls hokm. Everyone gets thirteen. Follow suit if you can, trump if you cannot, and the first side to take seven tricks wins the round. Seven rounds win the game. Take all seven while the others take none and it is a kot, worth two, or three against the hakem. The partner's middle card, the house rule many tables play, is on by default and can be switched off. NEVER PLAYED? START AT SCHOOL Nine short spoken lessons take you from never having held a card to calling hokm yourself. Then the Road of Four: your first four games against the bots, one for each house, tell Fereydun's story a chapter at a time. You can switch the story off. PLAY THE WAY YOU LIKE Online against other players, on computer and phone at the same tables In the same room, over your own network, with bots in any empty seat Alone against the bots, fully offline Knockout tournaments to the crown Circles: your own group with private tables, its own ranking and a group chat Friends and messages, with blocking and reporting built in CLIMB THE RANKS Your farr grows with every game, through eighteen steps from Footman to King. Earn copper, silver, gold and turquoise badges, and finish the day's decrees for coins. AT THE TABLE Throw a tomato, a slipper or a rose at another player's portrait, anonymously. Call a tea break and hear the next chapter of the story. Dress your cards with sixty backs from twelve painted worlds and effects for the cut and the win. A FAIR DEAL Every shuffle is agreed and published, and every device checks the deal for itself. GOOD TO KNOW Coins are only for playing. They can never be exchanged for money. No adverts. Mouse, keyboard or controller.