How to play Dehla Pakad

How the game works

Dehla means the ten and pakad means catch, and that is the game: of the 52 cards, only the four tens count. Aces, kings and tricks matter only because they help your team end the hand holding tens.

The twist is how cards are captured. Winning a trick does not let you keep it. Finished tricks pile up in the middle until one player wins two in a row and sweeps the whole pile for their team.

Some write-ups give Dehla Pakad a seven-trick target; that rule belongs to Court Piece, a different game with the same deal.

The cards and the deal

Four people play in two fixed partnerships, partners sitting opposite, so every player has an opponent on each side.

Use a standard 52-card pack without jokers. All the cards are dealt, 13 each. In every suit, trumps included, the cards rank from high to low:

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

Note that the precious tens rank below the jack.

Choose the first dealer at random, for example by drawing cards. Dealing and play go clockwise, so the player on the dealer’s left is dealt to first. The cards go out five each, then four each, then four each, and trumps are settled after the first five.

Choosing trumps

There are two standard methods. Agree on one before the first deal.

Called trump. The player on the dealer’s left looks at their first five cards and names a suit as trumps, with no help from their partner. There is no passing, no bidding and no “no trumps”. The remaining cards are dealt, and the caller leads to the first trick with any card. This is the easier method to learn, and the one this guide assumes.

Cut trump (katte, cut hukum). Play starts on the first five cards with no trumps, led by the player on the dealer’s left. The first player who cannot follow suit sets trumps with the card they play, and it counts as a trump at once: it wins that trick unless a later player, also out of the suit, plays a higher trump. The dealer then deals the remaining cards and the trick winner leads on. If nobody runs out of a suit in the five opening tricks, a card picked at random from those tricks sets trumps, the deal is completed, and the winner of the fifth trick leads.

Playing a trick

• Follow the suit led if you can.
• If you cannot, play any card. You never have to trump, overtrump or try to win.
• The highest trump wins. If no trump was played, the highest card of the suit led wins.

Any card may be led, trumps included. The trick winner leads next, and partners may not signal to each other.

A player who fails to follow suit when able can correct it before the trick is turned face down, and anyone who played after them may then change their card. Agree before you start what happens if it is found later; many tables stop the hand and give the other team a kot, as in Court Piece.

Two in a row takes the pile

This is the rule that makes Dehla Pakad. Each finished trick goes face down in the centre, belonging to nobody, until the same player wins two tricks in a row. That player takes the whole pile, including the trick just won, for their team.

• It has to be the same player. If you win a trick and your partner wins the next, nothing is taken. If your partner wins again, your partner takes the lot.
• The count restarts after every sweep. A third win in a row starts a new pile; it takes a fourth to sweep again.
• The last trick takes everything. The winner of the 13th trick takes it and whatever is left in the centre, even without winning the 12th, so all 52 cards always end up with one team or the other.

So a team can win seven of the thirteen tricks and still lose the hand, and if nobody wins two in a row before the last trick, its winner takes all 52 cards. Saving a sure winner, such as the ace of trumps, for the end is a real tactic. All 13 tricks are always played.

Court Piece players know this rule as Double Sir (a sir, or sar, is a trick). In Dehla Pakad it is not optional: it is the game. Give each trick straight to its winner instead and you are playing Mendikot, also called Mindi, a close cousin from Maharashtra and Gujarat.

Winning the hand

Each team then counts the tens it has captured.

Tens captured	Result
All four	That team wins the hand and scores a kot
Three	That team wins the hand
Two each	The team that did not deal wins the hand

The dealing team needs three tens; two are enough for the other side.

Kots and the match

The kot (the same word as the court of Court Piece) is the only score. A team earns one by capturing all four tens in a hand, or by winning seven hands in a row. Losing a hand ends a team’s run, and any kot resets both teams’ runs to zero. Taking all 52 cards is still one kot.

Agree the length of the match before you start: a target number of kots, a set time or a set number of hands. The team with more kots wins; level kots, including none each, is a draw.

Who deals next

The dealer always comes from the team that lost the last hand, so the winners get the next trump call.

Last hand	Next dealer
Dealer’s team won (three or four tens)	The player on the dealer’s left
Other team won with two or three tens	The same dealer again
Other team took all four tens	The dealer’s partner

Variants

• Anticlockwise. Some tables deal and play to the right, so everything is mirrored: the player on the dealer’s right calls or leads, and the deal passes to the right.
• 2-2 decided by tricks. Some tables give a two-each hand to the team with more tricks. Agree first whether that means tricks won at the table or tricks in each team’s captured pile, as the two often differ.
• Hidden trump (bandh hukum). Borrowed from Mendikot: the player on the dealer’s left puts one of their first five cards face down, and its suit is trumps. Some tables turn it up as soon as anyone cannot follow suit; it goes back to the player who set it, and the player out of the suit may still play anything. Others reveal it only when such a player asks: until then the trick has no trumps, the asker must play a trump if able, and trump-suit cards played before the reveal do not count as trumps.

Quick reference

• Four players, two teams, partners opposite; play goes clockwise.
• 52 cards, ace high, ten below the jack; dealt five, four, four.
• The player on the dealer’s left names trumps after five cards (or, if agreed, the first player out of a suit sets them).
• Follow suit if you can; otherwise play anything.
• Two tricks in a row by one player takes the centre pile; the last trick takes the rest.
• Three tens win the hand, or two for the team that did not deal. Four tens, or seven hands in a row, score a kot.
• The losing team deals next.