How to Play Trix (Trex): Card Game Rules & Scoring

Updated September 29, 2026

Trix is the four-player card game of kingdoms and contracts that has filled family evenings and café tables across the Arab world for decades. This guide explains how to play Trix step by step — kingdoms, the five contracts, doubling and exact scoring — as the game runs on Kroot, so you can play Trix free on Kroot as soon as you finish reading.

What is Trix?

Trix (also spelled Trex, and written تركس in Arabic) is a compendium game: instead of one set of rules, every deal is one of five mini-games called contracts. Four of them are trick-taking contracts where you try to avoid penalty cards, and the fifth, Trix itself, is a race to empty your hand. It is especially popular in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE, where it is a staple of card nights and online card-game apps.

Players and cards

• Four players, using a standard 52-card deck with no jokers.
• 13 cards each. The deck is reshuffled and dealt fresh for every contract.
• Card ranking: Ace is high — A, K, Q, J, 10 down to 2.
• Direction of play: counter-clockwise, so the turn passes to the player on your right.
• Two ways to play: Solo, where every player is on their own, or Partnership, where the two players sitting opposite each other form a team and their scores are added together.

Objective

Finish with the highest total score after all four kingdoms. Four of the five contracts can only take points away from you; Trix is the only contract that hands points out. Winning is about losing as little as possible in the penalty contracts and getting out early in the Trix contract. In partnership mode, the team with the higher combined score wins.

A full game is 20 deals. On Kroot, a game also ends early once the leader can no longer be caught, even if every remaining contract went perfectly for second place.

How a kingdom works

A game of Trix is split into four kingdoms. Each player owns one kingdom, and each kingdom contains all five contracts.

1. Find the first owner. After the first deal, the player holding the 7 of hearts (7♥) owns the first kingdom.
2. Choose a contract. The kingdom owner picks any contract not yet played in this kingdom — any order, but each contract exactly once.
3. Doubling window (King and Queens only). If the owner calls King or Queens, anyone holding the King of hearts or a Queen gets about ten seconds to reveal it and double its penalty, or to decline.
4. Play the deal. The kingdom owner leads the first trick (or plays first in the Trix contract).
5. Score and redeal. The deal’s points go on the scoreboard, the cards are reshuffled and dealt again, and the same owner picks the next contract.
6. Pass the kingdom. After all five contracts, the kingdom passes to the next player on the right. When the fourth kingdom is finished, the game is over.

In the four trick-taking contracts, the rules are always the same:

• The leader plays any card, and its suit becomes the led suit.
• You must follow suit if you can; if you can’t, you may play any card.
• The highest card of the led suit wins the trick. There are no trumps.
• Whoever wins the trick leads the next one.

The five contracts

King of Hearts

Avoid winning the trick that contains the King of hearts (K♥). Whoever takes it scores −75, and the deal ends immediately because there is nothing left to lose.

Doubling: if you hold the K♥, you can reveal it during the doubling window. If another player then takes it, they score −150 and you earn +75. If you end up taking your own revealed King, you score −150.

Queens

Each Queen you take costs −25, so the worst case is −100 for all four. The deal ends as soon as the fourth Queen has been taken.

Doubling: you can reveal any Queens you hold. A revealed Queen costs whoever takes it −50. If another player takes it, you earn +25; if you take it yourself, you simply lose the −50.

Diamonds

Each diamond you take costs −10, up to −130 for all thirteen. The deal ends once every diamond has been taken. Diamonds cannot be doubled.

Lutoosh

Lutoosh is the “no tricks” contract: every trick you win costs −15, whatever cards are in it. All 13 tricks are always played, so the worst case is −195.

Trix

The Trix contract has no tricks at all. It is a shedding game played on four columns in the middle of the table, one for each suit, built outward from the Jacks.

• A suit’s column can only be started with its Jack.
• Once the Jack is down, the column grows upward (Q, K, A) and downward (10, 9 … 2), one card at a time, always next to the current end.
• The kingdom owner plays first. On your turn you play one legal card; you may only pass when you have no legal card to play.
• Players who empty their hands drop out, and the rest keep going. When three players are out, the last player takes fourth place.

Finishing order scores +200 for first, +150 for second, +100 for third and +50 for fourth. In partnership games, every player’s 2s are revealed to the table when the Trix contract starts.

Scoring summary

Notice the balance: before doubling, the four penalty contracts take exactly 500 points off the table (75 + 100 + 130 + 195), and the Trix contract gives exactly 500 back (200 + 150 + 100 + 50).

Kroot also offers Trix Complex, where each kingdom has only two contracts, Complex and Trix, so a full game is 8 deals.

Strategy tips for beginners

• Plan your contract order as owner. Look at your hand before you choose: many low cards suit Lutoosh or Diamonds, while a hand with Jacks and cards next to them is a strong Trix hand.
• Create a void. Emptying a short suit early lets you discard a dangerous card, like the K♥ or a high Queen, on someone else’s trick.
• Only double what you can get rid of. Revealing the K♥ or a Queen is a gamble: it pays when you can pass the card to an opponent, and it costs you double when you can’t.
• Count the danger cards. Keep track of which Queens and diamonds have fallen, and of high cards in each suit, so you know when leading a suit is safe.
• In Trix, choose which door to open. When you have several legal cards, prefer the one that frees up your own next cards rather than your opponents’.

Play Trix online

You can play Trix free on Kroot in any browser, on desktop or phone, in English or Arabic. Create a room for classic Trix or Complex, pick Solo or Partnership, and share the invite link or room code with friends. Empty seats are filled by bots when the waiting-room countdown ends, and if a player drops out mid-game a bot takes over their seat so the game keeps moving. Once you’ve mastered the kingdoms, learn how to play Tarneeb, the classic bidding partnership game — or jump into a Trix table right now.