Kout Terminology: Complete Glossary

Sit at any Kuwaiti card table and you will hear players say Son, Hakam and Reddah before a single card is played. That is Kout, the country's most popular card game, with a vocabulary of its own.

This guide explains the most common Kout terms in plain English, grouped by theme: game structure, declarations, the Sara side bet, and the words around sessions and scoring.

Game structure: shidda, hakam and son

Kout is played by four players in two fixed teams, partners sitting opposite each other, with a standard 52-card deck. Teams race to 152 points, and the first team to get there wins. Each round brings its own key words:

• Shidda (round): one full round of play, from the deal to the counting of points. The dealer gives 13 cards to every player, and the deal moves around the table with each new shidda.
• Hakam (the ruling suit): the suit that rules the round: hakam cards beat every other suit during play, and it is set before the round begins.
• Son: the best-known Kout declaration: a player holding the strongest cards of a suit declares Son to claim that suit as the round's hakam.
• Team: two partners sitting opposite the other pair, pooling their points for the whole game.

Declarations: the Reddah

Before play starts, players announce their strongest holdings out loud, and the most valuable announcement is the Reddah.

A Reddah is all four cards of the same rank — a four of a kind, like four aces or four kings. Whoever holds one declares it right away: it earns the team bonus points before play even begins.

Sara: the side bet

Sara is a side bet between two players from opposing teams, agreed before or during a round and kept outside the official score. One player wagers that his team wins the round, on whatever condition the two agreed.

The Sara is settled between the two players directly when the round ends, and never touches the team points — which is why some tables get livelier over Saras than over the score itself.

Session and scoring words

A session is a full sitting at the table, usually holding several rounds; the game ends when a team reaches 152 points. Around a Kuwaiti table you will also hear:

• Point: the unit of scoring in Kout; round points add up, and the first team to 152 wins the game.
• Dealer: the player who deals the round's cards; the role passes around the table each shidda.
• Local card names: Kuwaitis call the ace الآس, the king الشايب and the queen البنت — you will hear these at every table.

Talk like a local: call a round a shidda, announce 'Reddah!' on a four of a kind, and say Son when you claim the ruling suit.

Keeping score by hand gets risky as rounds pile up. The Kout Score app helps you calculate and track scores for your Kout sessions — free on Google Play — so the numbers stay right.

And to log every round without arguments or forgotten points, the Kout Score app does the counting for you — it is free on Google Play and ready whenever your team plays.

Now you have the full Kout glossary, from shidda, son and hakam to reddah, sara and the race to 152. When your own sessions start, Download Kout Score free on Google Play and let the scoreboard do the rest.