Card Games and Cafes: Social Life in the Arab World
By: Lindsey Penn/Arab America Contributing Writer
In the Arab world, cafes are not just a place to work, but a place to socialize for hours on end. Each table has a deck of cards, chess, backgammon, and more. People gather with friends to drink leymoon bil nana, smoke shisha, watch sports, and play card games until late at night. The atmosphere is busy, yet friendly and warm as people have fun with friends. Here is a list of a few common card games (and how to play them)!
Hand
Pronounced with a short “a” different from the English word “hand”, this card game is very common among Arabs. It is very competitive, but at the same time, it is very lively. Hand is a version of Rummy placed most commonly in the Levant and played with two full packs of cards including the jokers, with 106 cards in total. The goal is to have groups or sequences of cards (called melds) and put all of your cards on the table. Each game is seven rounds, and at the end, the person with the lowest score wins.
Players
The game is for up to four players. Each player can play individually, or there can be two teams of two, with the players on the same team sitting opposite from each other. The game works counterclockwise, with the dealer starting and then goes to the player on the right.
More instructions on how to play can be found here!
Tarneeb
Tarneeb is another incredibly popular card game in the Arab world. It is a game of trumps and bids, and has two main versions: one version is simpler (only includes the bids), and the other version has trumps and bids (most popular in Egypt). Every country has a version of the game that is different. The game only uses one deck of cards. In the end, the team with 31 points or more wins. There are also ways to play it over the internet.
Players
Like Hand, it has four players and two partnerships with the partners facing each other across the table. The players choose the dealer randomly, and after the dealer, the players go counterclockwise.
For more information about the card game and its variations, click here.
Baloot
This game is popular in the Gulf, mainly in Saudi Arabia. It is a game of bidding where the winning team reaches 152 points, or wins the “Gahwa” round (explained more in the link below). The game is slightly more complex than Tarneeb, but is still enjoyable (proven by the fact that the app for Baloot is one of the most downloaded in the Gulf). The unique part to the game is that it uses one deck of cards, but without the twos, threes, fours, fives, and sixes, meaning there are only 32 cards in the game. There are two systems in the game “Sun” and “Hokum”.
Players
Similar to the other games, there are four players in two teams. Each team tries to win more bids than the other team and score the most points.
Learn more about the game here!
Trex
This game is somewhat similar to the French game Barbu. It has gained increasing popularity with everyone from college-age students to elders. The game uses a full deck of cards. In this game, there four rounds, and each round made up of five games. Each game has its own set of rules, making it more complicated but still incredibly fun. The objective is to score the most points but there are certain cards that will subtract points from your score. If you lose a trick, negative points are also added to your score.
Players
There are four players in this game, but no teams. Each player gets to be the “king” once in the four rounds. For the round that they are “king”, they choose the set of rules to follow for each game.
The steps on how to play the game can be found here!
Basra
The game uses a standard pack of cards. It ends when the players use all 52 cards and there are no cards left on the table. Whoever holds the majority of the deck wins. The game is played with “captures” where each player puts down a card the same number as one on the table, “capturing” it and putting it in their pile. When a player takes all of the cards off the table, it is called basra and the player gets ten bonus points.
Players
Basra can have either two players or four players. If there are four players, they play in teams of two and sit opposite each other.
Here is how to play the game!
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Edited by: Sophia Segal
