Non-dealer cuts the cards, and gets to see the bottom card. The dealer places 10 face up in the middle and then ten to each player (9 if 3 players, 8 if 4). The left-over cards are placed in a face-down stack in the middle of the table with the face-up cards scattered around the stack. In the four player game, players on opposite sides of the table are a team. Players alternate. On a turn, first a player plays a card from hand, capturing a face-up card if it shares a month with the played card. Otherwise the played card is added to the face-up collection. The same player then draws the top stack card and attempts to capture a face-up card. If no capture is possible the card is just added to the face-up collection. The action of playing the top stack card is called omkais. Dealing is called omerous.