Batak is one of the most popular card games in Turkey. If you know Spades or Whist, you will recognise the idea: players win tricks, and one suit is trump. But Batak has two features that make it feel very different. The trump suit is chosen by whoever wins an auction, and the rules force you to beat the cards on the table whenever you can.
This guide covers the rules of the most common form, the key Turkish terms, and the strategy that helps you bid well and make your contract.
The key terms
A few Turkish words come up in every game of Batak:
- El: a trick. “El almak” means to win a trick.
- İhale: the auction at the start of each hand, where players bid how many tricks they will take.
- Koz: trump. The winner of the ihale names the koz suit.
- Batmak: to fail your bid, to “go down”.
- Pas: pass, when you do not want to bid.
The basic rules
The classic game, sometimes called İhaleli Batak or Tekli Batak, is played by four players, each for themselves, with a standard 52-card deck. Every player gets 13 cards. Aces are high, twos are low. In the traditional Turkish style, play moves to the right (counter-clockwise).
The ihale
Starting from the player next to the dealer, everyone bids the number of tricks they think they can take if they choose trump. Each bid must be higher than the last one. Bids usually start from a minimum such as 4 or 5, depending on the table, and go up to 13. On most tables, once you pass you cannot come back into the auction.
The highest bidder wins the ihale. They name the koz suit and lead the first trick.
Tables handle the case where everyone passes differently. Some redeal the cards; others make the last player take the contract at the minimum bid.
Playing the cards
The rules of play are stricter than in most trick-taking games:
- You must follow suit if you can.
- You must beat the winning card if you can. If a king of hearts is winning the trick and you hold the ace of hearts, you must play it. This is called yükseltme.
- If you have no cards of the led suit, you must play a trump.
- If the trick has already been trumped, you must play a higher trump if you have one.
- Only when you have neither the led suit nor any trump may you play any card.
On most tables, koz cannot be led until someone has played a trump on another suit (the koz has been “broken”), unless the leader holds nothing but trumps.
Scoring
Scoring varies between tables, but this is a common version:
- If the ihale winner takes at least as many tricks as they bid, they score the number of tricks they took.
- If they take fewer, they batar (go down) and lose points equal to their bid.
- The other players score one point for each trick they took.
Some tables add a penalty for a defender who takes no tricks at all. A match usually ends after a set number of hands or when someone reaches a target score, often 51.
Popular variants
Batak has many forms. The most common include:
- Eşli Batak (partnership): partners sit across from each other and bid and score as a team, so the minimum bid is higher, often around 7.
- Koz Maça (no auction): spades are always trump, and every player makes their own bid. Each player is held to their own number.
- Gömmeli (three players): cards are split between three players with extra cards set aside. The ihale winner picks them up and buries the same number of cards.
- 3-5-8: a three-player game with fixed targets of 8, 5 and 3 tricks.
Details such as minimum bids and card counts vary from table to table.
Strategy: bidding the ihale
Count your tricks honestly
Look at your hand as if your longest strong suit were koz. Count:
- Aces in side suits: about one trick each.
- Kings with a small card beside them: about half a trick each.
- Koz length: with six or more cards in your chosen trump suit, the low trumps will take tricks once the others run out. Count the cards beyond the fourth as likely tricks.
- Short suits: a void or a singleton in a side suit lets you trump early, as long as you have trumps to spare.
Choose the right koz
The best trump suit is usually your longest suit, not just the one with the highest cards. Six hearts headed by the queen often make a better koz than four spades headed by the ace and king, because length gives you control late in the hand.
Do not overbid to win the auction
Taking the ihale is exciting, but going down costs your whole bid. A bid one trick higher than your honest count can work if your hand has strong koz. A bid two tricks higher is usually a bad idea.
Strategy: playing as the ihale winner
Draw trumps early. Leading koz pulls trumps out of your opponents’ hands, so your high cards in side suits are not trumped later. Count how many trumps have been played: there are 13 in total.
Cash your side-suit aces at the right time. Once the opponents are out of trump, your aces and kings become safe winners. Before that, an ace in a suit where an opponent is void can be trumped.
Use the must-beat rule. Because players must beat the winning card when they can, high cards get forced out early. Leading a low card in a suit where you hold the ace can make an opponent with a bare king or queen spend it on a small trick. Later, your ace wins against weaker cards.
Strategy: defending
Work together against the declarer. In solo Batak there are no official partners, but all three defenders gain when the ihale winner goes down, and each trick you take is still worth points.
Lead suits the declarer is void in. The must-trump rule forces them to spend a koz on every such trick. Shortening the declarer’s koz is one of the best ways to make them fail.
Count cards. Keep track of which aces and kings have gone, and how many trumps remain. Late in the hand, knowing that your 10 is the highest card left in a suit is often worth a trick.
Playing Batak İnternetsiz
Batak İnternetsiz includes İhaleli (solo) Batak, Eşli Batak, Koz Maça, Gömmeli for three, 3-5-8 and Spades. It follows the rules above: you must follow suit, beat the winning card if you can, trump when void and overtrump when possible, and the game enforces these rules so you never play an illegal card by mistake. In solo Batak the minimum bid is 4 by default and can be set to 5. If every player passes, the last player takes the contract at the minimum bid. The ihale winner scores the tricks taken if the bid is made and loses the bid if not. By default a match lasts 11 hands, or you can play to a points target such as 51, and koz cannot be led before it has been broken unless you change that table rule.