The Panjpar card game, online, with a friend or the computer

What Panjpar is, and which rules we deal

Pagat, John McLeod's card-games site, calls Panjpar a popular Afghan game for two and says it is featured in Khaled Hosseini's novel The Kite Runner. That is all the source says about the book, and all we say. It also calls the game closely related to the Russian game Prostoy Durak, but played with a standard 52-card deck. One difference is easy to state: nobody may swap a low trump for the trump card, as Durak lets you.

The rules we deal are Pagat's: McLeod's write-up, based mainly on information from Kamel Sidiqi. It is the fullest description we found, and it is really one source, so here is the catch. Pagat says a briefer description on a page about Afghan card games has some apparently unusual rules and may be a different version. We could not read that page. Another page in the search results describes a trick-taking game under the same name, with a 32-card pack and no source. We did not follow it.

Panjpar meaning, definition and pronunciation

Meaning: five cards, the number in each hand at the start of the game. Definition, in one line: a two-person beating game where one of you attacks with cards, the other beats them or picks them up, and whoever is left holding cards when the drawing is over loses. Pronunciation: the sources we read do not say, and we will not guess. If you know how it is said, tell whoever you are playing.

Guess the colour, deal five, turn the trump

Before a card is dealt, one of you guesses whether the trump suit will be red or black. Guess right and you attack first. Guess wrong and the other seat does. Pagat does not say who guesses, so that part is our call: the table picks the guesser for the first deal at random, and the two of you swap every deal after that, draws included. The computer guesses at random.

Then five cards each, and the next card is turned face up. Its suit is trump. The other 41 cards go face down on top of it, at right angles, so the trump card stays in view. That stack is the pile, and the trump card under it is the last one anyone draws.

Attacking, beating, and one battle worked through

Cards rank ace high down to the two. The attacker lays one, three or five face up. Any single card will do. Three need a pair, and 8-8-8 counts. Five need two separate pairs: K-K-4-4-7, 10-10-3-3-3 and 6-6-6-6-J all work, and so does a full house. 8-8-8 with two different odd cards does not. You may never attack with more cards than the other seat holds, so a seat down to two cards can only be attacked with one.

The defender beats a card with a higher card of the same suit, or with any trump if that card is not one. A trump is beaten only by a higher trump. One beating card for each attack card, and beating is never compulsory: beat all, some or none, even a card you could beat. Pagat's advice is that when the attack is aces or big trumps, you will often prefer to pick them up for later. In our opinion that is the interesting choice in Panjpar, because what you pick up is a hand you get to use.

A worked battle, with diamonds as trumps. You attack with the six of spades, the six of hearts and the queen of clubs: a pair and a third card. The other seat holds the nine of spades, the three of diamonds, the king of diamonds, the four of clubs and the ten of hearts. It beats the spade six with the nine of spades. It beats the heart six with the three of diamonds, since any trump beats a plain card, one that is not a trump. The only trump it has left for your queen is the king of diamonds, and it keeps the king, picking the queen up instead. Four cards go aside. One card went unbeaten, so you attack again.

Then the draw, you first, and it is not optional: while cards remain, you must draw back up to five. You played three cards and hold two, so you take three. The other seat holds four, its three left plus the queen, so it takes one. Anyone already holding five or more draws nothing. Had every card been beaten, the roles would have swapped.

How a deal ends, and how a match ends

The pile runs down and the trump card goes last. After that play continues without drawing, and the deal ends the moment either of you has no cards left after a battle. The winner is whoever emptied their hand, and the one still holding cards loses. That holds even if your last card got beaten: lay it, watch it fall, and you still win if the other seat has cards left. Only when both of you empty in the same battle is it a draw.

Pagat defines one deal and stops. The match around it is our choice: the host chooses first to 1, 3 or 5 deals won, with 3 the default, and a drawn deal scores for nobody and is played again. The guess passes to the other seat after every deal.

Panjpar online, with a friend

Start a table, pick how long the match is and share one link. No account, nothing to download, and voice if you switch it on. The table seats exactly two, the host and the guest, so it is one on one with whoever gets the link. The board shows whose move it is. A card that cannot beat the attack is dimmed, and a line on the board says why. The last battle stays up until the next attack: what was thrown, what beat what, how many cards were picked up.

The server shuffles and deals, and during a deal your cards are not sent to the other seat, only how many you hold. When a deal ends, the cards left are turned over for both of you. Your opponent shows as card backs and a count, because Pagat says you may always know how many cards the other hand has. The pile carries no number, because Pagat forbids counting it, and set-aside cards stay face down with no viewer. What the other seat picked up, beyond the last battle, the table does not remember for you. Keeping track of it is your job.

If nobody at the table knows Panjpar yet, good. Best card game with friends, in our opinion: the one you both know the rules of, or neither does.

Panjpar against the computer

You face one computer on the same rules, and you choose the match length above the table. It plays from what you could see: its own hand, the table, trump, whether anything is left to draw, how many cards you hold, and any cards you have picked up and still hold. Attacking, it leads its lowest plain single and keeps aces, kings and trumps back. When your hand is big enough, it lays a low plain pair as a three-card attack. Once nothing is left to draw, it lays every card it holds at once if the rules let it. Defending, it beats every card it can, each with the cheapest card that does the job, so plain cards go before trumps and low before high, and it picks up only the cards it has nothing left to beat with. Every move it makes is legal.

Not sure you have it yet? Try the computer first, then share the link. It answers on a timer, not instantly. Playing is free, as at every table here, and if an ad turns up we will try to keep it discreet. A Panjpar app surely exists somewhere. This is a page: load it and deal.