How to Play
Trix is a Levantine compendium card game for 4 players built from 5 wildly different contracts played across a 20-deal match: avoid the [K♥], avoid diamonds, avoid queens, avoid tricks entirely, and race to empty your hand in the fast-paced Trix contract itself.
Trix is a Levantine compendium card game for four players that cycles through five completely different contracts inside every 'Kingdom': avoiding the , avoiding diamonds, avoiding queens, avoiding tricks altogether, and the eponymous Trix contract, a fast shedding race with no tricks at all. Each of the four players takes a turn as the deal's King, choosing the order in which their own five contracts are played, so a full match runs 20 deals in total. Structurally similar to the French compendium game Barbu, Trix is enormously popular across Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine, both at the family table and on Arabic-language mobile platforms such as Jawaker and Maysalward. Because four of the five contracts only ever subtract points, a Trix match rewards patient, careful defense punctuated by a few decisive Trix-contract sprints to the finish.
Quick Reference
- 4 players, no partnerships, use a single standard 52-card deck (no jokers).
- Deal all 13 cards to each player; whoever holds on the first deal becomes the first King.
- Each King deals 5 hands and picks the order of the 5 contracts (King of Hearts, Diamonds, Queens, No Tricks, Trix) for their own Kingdom.
- In the 4 trick contracts, follow suit if able; there is no trump, so the highest card of the suit led wins the trick.
- In the King of Hearts contract only, you may not lead a heart unless your whole hand is hearts.
- In the Trix contract, play a Jack to start a suit layout or extend an existing layout by 1 rank, or pass if you cannot.
- King of Hearts: capturing costs -75 points.
- Diamonds: every diamond captured costs -10 points each.
- Queens: every queen captured costs -25 points each.
- No Tricks: every trick you win costs -15 points.
- Trix: finishing 1st through 4th scores +200, +150, +100, and +50.
Players
Trix is played by exactly 4 players, each competing individually; there are no partnerships. Turn order, the direction trick-play rotates, and the direction cards are passed in the Trix contract all move counter-clockwise, to the right.
Card Deck
- Use a single standard 52-card deck with no jokers.
- Card rank within a suit, high to low: Ace, King, Queen, Jack, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2.
- No suit is ever trump. All four trick-taking contracts, and the Trix contract itself, are played completely without trumps.
Objective
Across a full match of 20 deals, score more total points than the other 3 players by avoiding the specific penalty cards or tricks named in each of the 4 trick-taking contracts (the , diamonds, queens, and tricks in general) while finishing as high as possible in the fifth, points-scoring Trix contract, where the goal flips to emptying your hand before anyone else.
Setup
- Shuffle a single 52-card deck and deal all 13 cards to each of the 4 players.
- On the very first deal of a match, whoever is dealt becomes the first King and owns the first Kingdom.
- As King, that player deals all 5 hands of their Kingdom personally. Before each of those 5 deals, the King chooses one of the 5 contracts, Diamonds, Queens, King of Hearts, No Tricks, and Trix, that has not yet been used in this Kingdom, until all 5 have been played exactly once.
- Once a King's 5 deals are finished, the Kingdom passes to the player on the King's right for their own 5-deal reign, then to the player opposite the first King, then to the fourth player. A full match therefore runs 4 Kingdoms of 5 deals each, 20 deals in total.
Gameplay
- No trump is ever used. The King deals and leads to the first trick of each hand; the winner of every trick leads the next, and turn order moves counter-clockwise.
- Follow suit if you can. If you are void in the suit led, you may play any card from your hand, including a card from that deal's penalty suit itself.
- Highest card of the suit led wins the trick, since there is no trump to beat it. The trick winner gathers their own cards privately; there are no partnerships, so nothing is shared.
- Hearts restriction (King of Hearts contract only): it is illegal to lead a heart, including itself, unless every card left in your hand is a heart. Diamonds and queens carry no equivalent restriction in their own contracts; any card may be led at any time.
- Play continues for all 13 tricks in the King of Hearts, Diamonds, and Queens contracts. In the No Tricks contract the same no-trump, follow-suit rules apply, but every trick you win counts against you regardless of what it contains.
The Trix Contract
- The Trix contract abandons tricks entirely and instead runs like a Fan Tan style shedding race across 4 separate layouts, one per suit, each of which always starts with the Jack.
- The King plays first. At your turn you must play exactly 1 legal card if you hold one: any Jack, which starts that suit's layout, or a card exactly 1 rank above or below a card already placed in that suit's layout, extending it upward toward the Ace or downward toward the 2.
- If you cannot legally extend any layout and hold no unplayed Jack, you must pass; passing costs nothing beyond losing your turn, and you keep every card still in your hand.
- Play continues counter-clockwise until every player but 1 has emptied their hand. The order in which players play their last card decides the standings for this deal.
Scoring
- King of Hearts contract: capturing in a trick costs the player who took it -75 points; no other card affects the score this deal.
- Diamonds contract: every diamond captured in a trick costs its taker -10 points, so a hand where diamonds scatter evenly costs far less than one where a single player is forced to take most of them.
- Queens contract: each of the 4 queens captured costs its taker -25 points.
- No Tricks contract: every trick you win costs -15 points, whether it holds high cards or low ones.
- Optional opening rule (King of Hearts and Queens only): a player dealt or a queen may expose it face up before play begins. If another player is then forced to capture that exposed card, the taker pays double the normal penalty (-150 for , -50 for a queen) while the original holder scores the positive equivalent (+75 or +25) instead.
- Trix contract: the first player to empty their hand scores +200, the second +150, the third +100, and the last player left holding cards scores +50.
Winning
After all 4 Kingdoms and their 20 total deals are complete, add every deal's result to each player's running total. Since 4 of the 5 contracts only ever subtract points, most totals stay negative for much of the match; the player with the single highest cumulative score at the end wins. If 2 or more players are tied for the highest total after all 20 deals, most groups agree beforehand on a tiebreak, commonly 1 extra King of Hearts deal.
Common Variations
- Trex: the same game under its other common name, used interchangeably with Trix across different apps and regions.
- Sheikh Koobbah, Dinari, Banat, Eltoosh: regional Arabic names sometimes used for King of Hearts (the contract), Diamonds, Queens, and No Tricks when the contracts are announced.
- Skipping the opening rule: many casual and online groups drop the optional King of Hearts and Queens exposure rule entirely and simply play all 4 trick contracts as ordinary follow-suit, avoid-the-penalty hands.
- Shorter matches: mobile platforms and casual tables sometimes agree to stop after a single Kingdom, 5 deals, one per contract, rather than playing the full 20-deal, 4-Kingdom match.
- Partnership Trix: an occasional house variant seats the 4 players as 2 fixed partnerships and combines each pair's scores, though the standard game is played individually.
Tips and Strategy
- In the No Tricks contract, unload your highest cards early. A trick you win costs the same -15 points whether it contains 4 low cards or 4 aces, so there is no benefit to holding winners back.
- In the Diamonds contract, keep at least 1 safe card in every suit. That flexibility lets you follow suit with a low, harmless card instead of being forced to dump a diamond into a trick you are about to win.
- In the King of Hearts contract, count hearts as they fall. Once every heart below has already been played, holding itself becomes far safer, because no one can force it out with a lower heart lead.
- In the Trix contract, play Jacks the moment you draw them. An open layout gives you and everyone else more legal plays; hoarding a Jack only delays your own chances to shed cards later.
- When you are King, order your own 5 contracts around your hand. A hand loaded with low diamonds and few hearts favors playing Diamonds and King of Hearts early, saving Trix for whichever deal leaves you with the most flexible spread of ranks.
Glossary
- Kingdom (Mamlakah): the block of 5 consecutive deals, 1 per contract, owned by a single King.
- King: the player who deals and chooses the contract order for their own Kingdom.
- Trick: the 4 cards played in 1 round of play, 1 from each player, won by the highest card of the suit led.
- Follow suit: playing a card of the same suit that was led to a trick, required whenever you hold one.
- Lead: the first card played to a trick, or the first card played into a Trix contract layout.
- Ltoosh / Eltoosh: a regional name for the No Tricks contract.
Tips & Strategy
Trix rewards players who treat each of its 5 contracts as a completely different skill test rather than one continuous game. In the 3 trick-avoidance contracts (King of Hearts, Diamonds, Queens), the safest path is almost always to unload your dangerous cards early while you can still control which suit is led, rather than getting trapped holding [K♥] or a stack of diamonds deep into the hand. In the No Tricks contract, discard your highest cards immediately, since winning any trick costs the same flat penalty regardless of its contents. In the Trix contract, play Jacks the moment you draw them to keep every suit's layout open, since a closed layout you cannot extend leaves you stuck passing turn after turn while opponents shed their hands around you. Finally, use your own Kingdom wisely: since you choose the order of your 5 contracts, sequence them to match the hand you were actually dealt rather than a fixed habit.
Because 4 of Trix's 5 contracts only ever remove points, strong play is measured less by how many points you gain and more by how few you lose relative to the table; a player who finishes a Kingdom only slightly negative while others post large penalties is often in the best position overall. Reading which suits opponents are void in during the trick-taking contracts lets you predict, and route around, who is most likely to be stuck capturing the next penalty card. In the Trix contract, tracking which ranks are already stuck in the middle of each suit's layout, rather than only your own hand, reveals which of your remaining cards are genuinely playable soon versus which will keep forcing you to pass.
Trivia & Fun Facts
The King of Hearts contract is named entirely after a single card, [K♥], worth -75 points on its own, the heaviest single penalty of any card in the game. Trix is 1 of the few widely played card games in which a single deal can flip from a purely defensive, point-losing contract to a purely offensive, point-scoring race, since the Trix contract's scoring (+200 down to +50) runs in the opposite direction from the other 4 contracts. The game's 5-contract, 4-Kingdom cycle means a complete match always runs to exactly 20 deals, one of the most rigidly structured deal counts of any traditional card game. Mobile apps built around Trix, alongside sister games like Tarneeb and Baloot, are consistently among the most downloaded card game apps across the Levant and Gulf regions.
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01Which specific card, worth -75 points to whoever captures it, gives the King of Hearts contract its name?Answer [K♥], the king of hearts; it is the only card that matters for scoring in that contract.
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02How does the Trix contract differ fundamentally from the other 4 contracts in the game?Answer It has no tricks and no trump at all; instead of avoiding penalty cards, players race to empty their hands first by building 4 suit layouts starting from the Jacks, and the first 3 players to finish score positive points (+200, +150, +100) while the last player left holding cards scores +50.
History & Culture
Trix developed in the Levant, most closely associated with Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine, as a compendium card game that blends the Western idea of trick-avoidance play, familiar from games like Hearts and Barbu, with a distinctly Middle Eastern shedding contest in its final Trix contract. Its 4-Kingdom, 5-contract structure closely parallels the French game Barbu, though Trix's specific contracts, penalty values, and its signature Jack-based shedding round are entirely its own. The game moved from family living rooms and cafe tables into a huge online following once Arabic-language platforms such as Jawaker and Maysalward built dedicated Trix apps and matchmaking servers, introducing the game to a new generation of players across the Arab diaspora.
Trix sits alongside Tarneeb and Baloot as one of the defining card games of Levantine social life, played at family gatherings, in university dorms, and in cafes across Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine. Its adoption by major Arabic-language gaming platforms turned a traditional table game into one of the region's most played mobile pastimes, connecting players across the Arab diaspora who no longer live in the same country as their regular card-playing circle.
Variations & House Rules
The game is called Trex as often as Trix depending on the app or region, with identical rules under either name. Some regional traditions use Arabic contract names, Sheikh Koobbah for King of Hearts, Dinari for Diamonds, Banat for Queens, and Ltoosh or Eltoosh for No Tricks, interchangeably with their English equivalents. Casual and online groups frequently drop the optional exposure rule for King of Hearts and Queens, and some tables shorten a full match to a single 5-deal Kingdom rather than the complete 20-deal cycle.
New groups can learn the game 1 contract at a time by agreeing to play only the King of Hearts contract repeatedly until everyone is comfortable with the no-trump, follow-suit basics, before introducing Diamonds, Queens, No Tricks, and finally the very different Trix contract. Dropping the optional exposure rule for King of Hearts and Queens removes a layer of risk calculation that beginners often find confusing. Groups short on time can agree to play a single Kingdom, 5 deals, one per contract, instead of the full 4-Kingdom match, while keeping every scoring rule identical.
