Batak Rules

Core rules#

• Four players, one 52-card deck; 13 cards each, 13 tricks in total.
• Play runs anticlockwise; the turn always passes to the right.
• The player to the dealer's right leads first; the deal rotates every round.
• Spades (♠) are the trump in every round; there is no trump call.
• You must follow the led suit if you can; otherwise you may throw any card.

The spade trump rule#

Batak answers the trump question once and for all: spades (♠) are always trump. There is no trump call, no trump auction and no per-round selection — spades rule every trick of every round. This is why the game is sometimes called "spade-trump batak".

What that means at the table: with no card in the led suit, any spade you throw cuts the trick; even the highest card of the led suit loses to the lowest spade. The count and quality of your spades is the first indicator of your bidding power — five or more spades is the foundation of a strong bid.

Spending trumps well is its own art: hold a short spade sequence back to cut with, and lead a long sequence in order to drain the opponents' trumps — both are standard routes to making your bid.

Auction rules#

• Declaration style: all four players state a bid at the same time; there is no pass.
• A bid is 0 or between 3 and 13.
• A bid of 0 is the no-tricks declaration: finish the round with zero tricks for +50, or −50 if you take any.
• Bids are revealed to the table only after everyone has declared.
• The four bids may add up to more than 13; that is legal — tricks aren't duplicated.
• A player who runs out of time is automatically booked for the minimum bid (3).

Scoring#

"Surrender" exists for hopeless positions: ANY seated player may surrender during play; the surrenderer's pair (in classic, the seat across) takes the full batak penalty, while the opponents keep the normal points for the tricks they have won so far.

Variants: Classic and Partners#

• Classic: everyone owns their bid and their score; ranking is individual.
• Partners: facing seats (0–2 and 1–3) form teams; the team score is the sum of both partners.
• Solo: the practice mode of Batak — you play against server bots.

Table speed and clocks#

When your clock runs out the server plays a legal card for you (or books the minimum bid). If your connection drops, your seat is taken over after 60 seconds; you can return to your table between rounds.

Table etiquette#

• Chat rate limit: 3 messages per 10 seconds.
• Emotes come from a fixed whitelist; they can't be spammed.
• A player who leaves mid-round is replaced by a bot; that round is excluded from rating.
• "Play Again" starts a fresh deal at the same table; seats are kept.