In the game of podkidnoy durak, the attacking player, or any of the assisting players, may place (throw in) one or more additional cards of any suit, as long as their rank matches the rank of any card already involved in the current attack. At any given moment, only one player may throw in cards, and after doing so, the round must end or the player must pass. Players are also allowed to talk to each other and give advice during the game.
Usually, any players except the defender may act as assisting players. If the defender successfully beats all cards, and another player has cards that they could have thrown in, that player discards those cards into the discard pile together with the rest of the beaten cards from that round.
If only two players remain and they have an equal number of cards in hand, there is no draw. The winner is the player who gets rid of all their cards first. If there are few cards left in the deck (1–5), a player who draws cards from the deck takes them until they have six cards in hand or until the deck runs out. At the same time, if the deck runs out and the other player does not have enough cards, the game continues even if the player who did not draw cards ends up with no cards.
If a player beats all cards (successfully defends), all cards (maximum of 6) involved in that attack are turned face down and placed into a separate pile called the discard or beaten pile, which no longer participates in the game and may not be looked at until the end of the hand. While cards on the table are not beaten or have not been taken by the defender, no new cards may be drawn from the deck (except in the case where cards were forgotten and not drawn up to six).
After the attack is completed, players take turns drawing cards from the remaining deck until they have six cards in hand, if they have fewer than six. The attacking player draws first, then the assisting players draw in clockwise order starting from the player to the left of the defender. The defender draws last, if there are any cards left. In perevodnoy durak, if the attacker was also the defender, they draw cards last. If players have an equal number of cards at the end of the hand, the same number of cards is drawn for each player.
After the deck is empty, the game continues with the cards remaining in players’ hands according to the same rules (except for drawing from the deck) until all players, except possibly one, have gotten rid of all their cards. The remaining player with cards is considered the loser (the “durak”). There are also variants where places are assigned based on the order in which players leave the game (the first player to get rid of all cards is the winner, the second gets second place, and so on).
In perevodnoy durak, the rules are the same, but the defending player may not only beat the cards, but also (before starting to beat them) transfer the attack to the player sitting to their left by playing a card of the same rank as the attacking card. In this case, the next player becomes the defender and must beat both cards—the original attacking card and the card used to transfer the attack.
The new defender may, in turn, transfer the attack further to the player on their left using a card of the same rank, and so on. If the player to whom the cards were transferred (one or more) beats all the cards, they take the next turn. When fewer than four players are playing, situations may arise where, as a result of successive transfers, the original attacking player ends up having to defend.