How Bura works
Two players, a short deck, and one rule that makes the game: you can lead several cards at once as long as they're the same suit. To win the trick, your opponent has to beat every one of them, each with its own card.
Card values
Rank runs A, 10, K, Q, J, then 9 down to 6 in the 36-card deck. The 10 outranks the king. The 6 to 9 are worth nothing, so both decks hold 120 points in total.
A hand, step by step
- Deal. Each player gets 3 (or 5) cards. The next card is turned face up: its suit is trump. It goes under the stock and is the last card drawn.
- Lead. Play 1 card, or several of one suit.
- Respond. Play the same number of cards. A card is beaten by a higher card of its suit, or by any trump if it isn't a trump. Beat every led card and you take the trick. If you can't, or you'd rather not, you throw the same number of cards and the leader takes everything.
- Draw. Refill from the stock, trick winner first, one card at a time. The trick winner leads next.
- Declare (3-card only). When you think your tricks hold 31 points, say "enough". Right, you win. Wrong, you lose. If nobody declares, most points after the last card wins.
ბურა and მალიუტკა: a full hand of one suit (3 cards in 3-card, 5 in 5-card) is put down on your turn: when you lead, or right after the other player leads, whatever they led.
- ბურა (Bura): all trumps. It wins the hand on the spot.
- მალიუტკა (malyutka): any other suit. It doesn't win the hand. Put down in answer to a lead, it becomes the lead: the cards they already led stay in play and they add the rest of their hand, so their whole hand goes against your suit, card for card. Unless every one of your cards is beaten, you take all of it.
Watch the end of the stock: if you're one trump short of ბურა, throwing on purpose can get you the face-up trump, which goes to the trick's loser in the stock's last round. Against that, lead several cards at once: the other player has to throw several, and the stock can't refill them.
Raising the stakes
A match is played to 11 points, or to 7 in short Bura. Many people also play სუხოი (sukhoi): reach 7 while your opponent still has 0 and the match ends right there. Both are options in the top bar. A hand is normally worth 1. On your turn, before you play, you can raise:
Your opponent either accepts, and the hand is worth the new amount, or folds and loses the hand at the old amount. After you raise, only your opponent can raise next. Each raise hands the right to the other side.
When to accept: folding loses the current stake for sure. Playing on wins or loses the new one. Against დავი (1 to 2) you should accept if you win at least 25% of the time from here. Against სე (2 to 3) the bar drops to about 17%, and it keeps falling. The coach shows your chance to win the hand and does this sum for you.
When to raise: when you're clearly ahead. The computer raises at about 70%. In self-play, raising at anywhere from 60 to 80% earned about the same, and far more than never raising.
Variants in this trainer
- Georgian, 3 cards. 20-card deck, target 31. Thrown cards go face down, so the leader can't see what they got. You have to estimate.
- Georgian, 5 cards. Full 36-card deck, 6 to A. No declaring: every card is played face up and the hand is played to the end. Most points wins and 60–60 is a draw, so 61 clinches it. A sharp player can count both piles exactly.
- Russian, 3 cards. 36-card deck (6 to A), target 31, face-down throws.
- 2 vs 2 online (5 cards). Four players, partners opposite each other. Everyone answers a lead in turn with the same number of cards, and to take the trick you must beat whatever is winning it so far, even if that's your partner. The hand is played to the last card and the team with more points wins it. ბურა wins the hand for your team; მალიუტკა in answer to a lead becomes the lead, and the other three answer it with their whole hands. Either opponent can accept or fold a raise for their team. One table chat for all four: no telling your partner what to play.
House rules differ a lot (molodka, three aces, betting with davi/se/chari, who draws first). This trainer uses the most common core. The betting layer isn't modelled.
Baseline odds
Computed live by the same engine the coach uses, for the first trick, when you hold no trumps yourself.
Reading the coach
- Computer can beat
- Out of every hand the computer could be holding, the share that has a separate beater for each card you lead. This is pure card counting and doesn't depend on how anyone plays.
- Exp. pts
- The average points this trick swings your way, assuming the computer beats only when that's worth it to them. Sometimes they can beat you but won't, because spending a trump to win a jack is a bad trade.
- Best
- Expected points, minus the value of the trumps and aces you'd spend, plus a big bonus for tricks that take you to the target. Early in a hand, keeping your trumps is often worth more than a few points now.
- Win hand
- Once the stock is empty, the coach plays out every possible ending, for every hand the computer could hold, with both sides playing perfectly. This is how often each move ends with you winning.
- Declare now is right
- 3-card variants only. In face-down variants you don't know what was thrown into your pile. The coach works out exactly what those cards could be worth. At 100% you're guaranteed to have the target. In self-play, declaring when only about 50% sure lost clearly more hands than waiting. Being 85 to 95% sure made no measurable difference, so wait for certainty if you can.
Computer levels
- Easy leads one card at a time and only counts what it can see. Good for learning the rules.
- Normal uses the same odds as the coach, but doesn't watch the score or search the endgame.
- Hard adds the target, the face-down odds and the endgame search. In self-play it beat Normal in about 55% of Georgian 3-card hands and 61% of 5-card hands. In the Russian game it's about even, because someone usually reaches 31 before the endgame.
Tips that actually matter
- Count trumps. Almost every beat in Bura comes down to "do they have a trump?". The trump card shown under the stock is one you know they don't hold, until someone draws it.
- Multi-card leads are hard to beat. Leading A♠ 10♠ together forces them to cover both, one card each. One trump isn't enough any more.
- The trump ace can never be beaten. The trump 10 loses only to the trump ace. Once the ace is seen, the 10 is safe too.
- Don't burn trumps on small tricks. Using a trump to take a jack is often worse than throwing a jack yourself. Save trumps to cut their aces and tens.
- A card nobody can beat isn't urgent. The trump ace scores its 11 whenever you play it. Leading it early only wins whatever they throw on it, and it can't cut their ace any more.
- Throw the lone card. Between cards worth the same, throw the one that's alone in its suit and keep pairs together: they can be led together later.
- Count your pile. In face-down variants you can't see what you were thrown. Declare only on points you're sure of; a wrong call loses everything.
- Watch the end of the stock. Whoever loses the last trick before the stock runs out picks up the face-up trump. Everyone knows they have it.
- Hand them nothing near the target. When the computer is a few points short, throwing an ace or a 10 into their trick can end the hand. Beat it, or throw your cheapest card.
- Once the stock is empty, count everything. In the 5-card game you can usually work out the computer's exact hand at that point. Every card not in your hand or already played is theirs.