Mid-19th-century Qajar lacquer game box and bone playing cards made in Iran

How to Play Hokm: A Beginner’s Guide to Iran’s Favorite Card Game

Hokm (حکم) is one of Iran’s best-known card games: a partnership game built around judgment, memory, and the power to choose the trump suit. It needs only a standard deck, but the changing role of the Hâkem—the “ruler” of the hand—gives it a personality of its own.

Mid-19th-century Qajar lacquer game box and bone playing cards made in Iran
Qajar lacquer game box with thirty-four bone playing cards, made in Iran in the mid-19th century. This historical set was used for a different game, not modern Hokm, but it reflects Iran’s broader game culture. Image: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Public Domain.

What does “Hokm” mean?

The Persian word hokm can mean a command or order. In this card-game context, it means the trump suit: the suit that outranks the others for that hand. The Hâkem—literally a ruler or governor—is the player who chooses that suit after seeing the first five cards dealt to them.

Rules specialist John McLeod’s Pagat guide to Hokm, based largely on information supplied by Iranian players, describes the game as an anticlockwise trick-taking game whose goal is to reach seven points before the opposing team.

What you need

  • Four players for the classic partnership version
  • One standard 52-card deck
  • Paper or a phone note for keeping score

Partners sit opposite each other. If your deck includes jokers, set them aside. A Persian-themed deck is optional, but it can give a diaspora family game night a more personal visual identity. Tute’s Achaemenid Royal Standard Playing Cards and Qajar Design Playing Cards both use the familiar suits needed for play.

Card ranking

Within each suit, cards rank from highest to lowest:

A, K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2.

There is no complicated point value attached to individual cards. What matters is winning tricks—one card played by each player—and ultimately becoming the first team to win seven tricks in the hand.

Step 1: Choose the Hâkem and teams

One player turns up cards to the players one at a time, moving anticlockwise. The first person to receive an ace becomes the Hâkem. Continue until another player receives an ace; that person becomes the Hâkem’s partner. Adjust seats if necessary so partners are opposite each other.

The player to the Hâkem’s left, who belongs to the opposing team, becomes the dealer. Some families use simpler house methods to select teams or the first Hâkem. That is fine as long as everyone agrees before play begins.

Step 2: Deal 5–4–4

The dealer deals anticlockwise, starting with the Hâkem. Each player will receive 13 cards in three batches:

  1. Five cards to each player
  2. Four cards to each player
  3. Four more cards to each player

After looking at only the first five cards, the Hâkem announces the trump suit. The deal then continues. This early choice is one of Hokm’s central decisions: a promising five-card start can become stronger—or much weaker—after the remaining cards arrive.

Step 3: Play the tricks

The Hâkem leads the first trick by playing any card. Play continues anticlockwise. Every player must follow the suit led if they can. A player who has no card in that suit may play any card, including a trump.

  • If one or more trumps are played, the highest trump wins the trick.
  • If no trump is played, the highest card of the suit originally led wins.
  • The winner of the trick leads the next one.

Partners cannot openly tell each other what they hold. Teamwork comes from remembering which cards have appeared, noticing when a player is out of a suit, and choosing leads that help your partner without giving your opponents an easy opening.

Step 4: Score the hand

The first team to take seven tricks wins the hand and normally scores one point. Pagat records two special shutout results commonly used in the four-player game:

  • If the Hâkem’s team wins the first seven tricks before the opponents take any, it scores two points. This is commonly called Kot.
  • If the opposing team takes the first seven tricks against the Hâkem’s team, it scores three points—often called Hâkem Koti.

The first team to reach seven points wins the full game. If the Hâkem’s team wins a hand, the Hâkem keeps the role. If the opponents win, the role and deal rotate according to the agreed rules.

A short example

Suppose hearts are trump and the first player leads the ace of clubs. The other players must play clubs if they have one. If a player has no clubs and plays the two of hearts, that low heart still beats every club because hearts are trump. But another player who is also out of clubs could win by playing a higher heart.

This is why tracking suits matters. Once you know a player has no clubs, every future club lead gives that player a chance to cut with a trump.

Beginner strategy

  • Count trumps. There are thirteen cards in each suit. Remembering how many trumps have been played helps you judge whether a lead is safe.
  • Watch voids. When a player cannot follow a suit, remember it.
  • Do not waste aces. An ace is strongest only while an opponent cannot trump it.
  • Read your partner’s play. A low card, a high card, or a repeated suit can communicate useful information without words.
  • Choose trump from shape as well as strength. Several cards in one suit may be more valuable than one isolated ace.

Hokm and Iran’s longer card tradition

Modern Hokm uses the international 52-card deck, but card play in Iran has a deeper visual history. Encyclopaedia Iranica documents surviving Persian ās cards from the Qajar period, ranging from luxury ivory examples to painted paper and papier-mâché sets, often drawing imagery from epics and literature.

The public-domain Met image above shows a mid-19th-century Qajar lacquer box with bone game pieces. The museum identifies it as a set for a form of mahjong, so it should not be confused with a Hokm deck. It is included because it demonstrates how games, craftsmanship, and painted storytelling could share the same object.

Make it a Persian game night

Serve tea, fruit, or simple snacks; explain the Persian terms as they appear; and let a new player observe one open practice hand before scoring begins. For guests who prefer a quieter table activity, the Achaemenid Flag 500-Piece Puzzle can sit at a second table.

The best Hokm nights are not about perfect rules enforcement. They are about the familiar rhythm of shuffling, debating the last trick, and teaching a game that can travel easily from one generation—and one country—to another.

Sources

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