Tash Game Online: Court Piece (Rung)

A tash game is any game played with tash, the Urdu word (تاش) for playing cards, and the one you can play here is Court Piece, which many families in Pakistan simply call Rung. Four players sit in two pairs, one of them looks at five cards and calls the rung (trump), and the first side to win seven of the thirteen tricks takes the hand. Play this tash game online free in your browser, against bots or with friends, with no download and no sign-up.

Tash means cards

Tash, taash, تاش in Urdu and ताश in Hindi: the word means a pack of playing cards, and one card is a patta or patti, the patti of Teen Patti. So a search for a tash game, a tash wali game or a tash ka game could be after any game played with the ordinary 52-card pack. For many families in Pakistan, though, the tash game that comes out when four people sit down together is Rung, also called Court Piece. It is the only game this site plays.

Court Piece, the tash game you can play here

Rung, Rang, Court Piece, Coat Pees and Hukum are all names for one game. It runs in the browser on a phone, a tablet or a computer, and there are three ways to sit down.

1. Against bots. Three bots take the other seats, at Easy, Medium, Hard or Expert. Easy is good to learn against; Expert plays out many possible deals of the unseen cards before choosing each card.
2. Quick match. Play Online seats you with other players who are online at the same moment, with no room to set up.
3. Private room. Create a room and send the room code or the link to your friends on WhatsApp. They join from the browser without an account, and bots take any seat nobody fills.

Every table offers the same four modes. Classic is the everyday game. Single Sir ends the hand as a Court when one side takes the first seven tricks in a row. Double Sir piles tricks up in the middle until the same player wins two in a row. Hidden Rung has no caller at all: the first off-suit card played sets the rung for the rest of the hand.

A hand of Rung, in numbers

These are the numbers the game itself uses, from the first five cards to the score.

1. One pack of 52 cards, no jokers, and four players. Partners sit opposite each other, and play passes anti-clockwise round the table.
2. The hakem, the player who calls, gets 5 cards and names the rung from those 5 alone. Take longer than 20 seconds and the game picks the suit you hold most of, with high cards breaking a tie.
3. If all 5 cards are below a Jack, the hakem may ask for one redeal instead of calling.
4. The rest of the pack is then dealt until everyone holds 13 cards.
5. You must follow the suit that was led if you hold it. If you cannot, any card is legal: cut with a rung card or throw something away. Cutting is never compulsory.
6. The highest rung card takes the trick, or the highest card of the led suit if nobody cut. You get 15 seconds for each card; after that the game plays a sensible legal card for you.
7. The first side to 7 of the 13 tricks wins the hand. In Classic, a side on 7 while the other side has none plays on for all 13.

The app keeps a match in points. In Classic, the calling side gets 1 for winning a hand and 3 for taking all 13 (in Single Sir the 3 is for seven straight); the defending side gets 3 for beating the call and 4 for its own sweep. Hidden Rung has no caller, so a won hand is 1 point to either side. A match runs to 3, 5, 7 or 10 points, with 5 as the default. Win the hand you called and you call again; lose it and the call crosses to the other side; take all 13 on your own call (seven straight in Single Sir) and it moves to your partner.

The full Court Piece rules, with the regional differences

Tash words: rung, sir, kot, hakem

The buttons on this site are in English, but the talk at a Rung table is Urdu, Punjabi, Sindhi or Hindi, and every word gets spelt several ways once people type it.

Rung (also rang, رنگ) means colour, and at the table it is the trump suit; hukum and turrup mean the same thing. The hakem (حاکم, also written hakim) is the player who names the rung, and the word means ruler. A sir (also sar) is one trick: four cards, one from each player. A kot (court, coat) is a sweep. Our Classic counts only all thirteen tricks on your own call as a kot; some tables count the first seven in a row, and our Single Sir mode plays it that way. A bavan, fifty-two, is all thirteen taken by the side that did not call.

The cards have their own names too: ikka for the ace, badshah for the king, begum for the queen, and ghulam or gola for the jack. Below them the names follow the numbers, from dahla for the ten and nahla for the nine down to tiggi for the three and duggi for the two.

Every Court Piece term, from rung to bayasi

Other tash games people look for

Plenty of tash game searches are after a different game, so to be clear: this site plays Court Piece and nothing else. Call Break is also a game for four, but every player is on their own, each one bids a number of tricks, and spades are always trump. Bhabhi, which many people call Thulla, is about getting rid of your cards, and the last player still holding cards loses. Teen Patti is a three-card game in which players bet on who holds the best hand. Rummy is about collecting sets and runs rather than winning tricks. If what you remember is four players, partners opposite, a trump called from five cards and a race to seven tricks, Rung is the game you are looking for.

Also known as Court Piece · Coat Pees · Hukum · حکم · Rung · رنگ · Troeff Call · Trump