Coat Piece, Court Piece, Rung or Hokm: one game, many names

01The short version

Coat Piece, Court Piece, Rung and Rang all name the same game: four players in two partnerships, one player choosing the trump suit from their first five cards, and a race to seven tricks. Hokm is the Persian game it comes from, still played in Iran with almost the same rules.

On PlayNest the game is listed as Rung: Court Piece. If you know it as Coat Piece, every rule will be familiar. Rung rules goes through them one by one.

02Court Piece and Coat Piece

Court Piece is the most common English name in Pakistan and India. The court in the name is the big moment of the game: winning the first seven tricks in a row, which scores extra. Many players believe the word comes from kot, the Persian name for the same sweep in Hokm, reshaped into an English word that sounded right.

Coat Piece is simply how a lot of people say and spell it. Court and coat sound almost the same in everyday Urdu and Punjabi speech, so Coat Piece became the everyday spelling in many homes. Court Peace turns up too. They all mean the same thing.

03Rung and Rang

Rang means colour in Urdu and Hindi, and in card talk it means suit. The rang of a round is the trump suit, the one colour that beats all the others. So when somebody says rang kya hai, they are asking what trump is.

Calling the whole game Rung or Rang names it after its most important decision. In English letters it is spelled Rung or Rang depending on who is typing; both are pronounced the same.

04Hokm, the Persian ancestor

Hokm means command, and the trump suit is the hokm: the suit that rules the round. The player who chooses it is the hakem. Hokm has been played in Iran for a long time, and it is widely believed to have reached the subcontinent through trade and travel, becoming Court Piece along the way.

The two games are still close enough that a player of one can sit down at the other almost at once. The main differences are how the first hakem is chosen, by dealing cards face up until someone gets an Ace, and how a sweep is scored. Our Rung vs Hokm vs Spades comparison sets them side by side.

05What changes from name to name

The name rarely changes the rules on its own. What changes is the family. Some play the plain game, some play Sar, where won tricks wait in the middle until someone wins two in a row, and some hide the trump card face down. Those are covered in Rung variants: Sar, Double Sar and more.

• The core, everywhere: four players, partners opposite, trump from five cards, follow suit, seven tricks to win.
• What varies: Sar or plain tricks, open or hidden trump, how a Court is scored, how long a match lasts.
• What our game plays: the plain version, with match length and the Court bonus as options.

06A round of Coat Piece in thirty seconds

Whatever you call it, a round looks like this. The dealer gives five cards to each player, starting on their right. That player looks at the five and names the trump. Everyone receives four more cards, then four more, for thirteen each. The trump caller leads, and players follow suit if they can, or cut with a trump, or throw any card. The highest trump wins each trick, or the highest card of the led suit if nobody cut. The first team to seven tricks takes the round, and seven in a row from the start is a Court.

If your family calls the trump hukam or rang instead of trump, the moves are still exactly the same.

07Play it under any name

Whatever your family calls it, you can play it free in your browser. Our Rung game seats you with a computer partner and two computer opponents, or you can open a room, send the link on WhatsApp and choose who partners whom. It runs on phones and computers with nothing to install.