French tarot rules

Played with a 78-card tarot pack, not for fortune telling but as one of the deepest trick-taking games in Europe. Best at five players, very good at four.

The deck

Four suits of fourteen — ace to ten, then jack, knight, queen, king — plus 21 numbered trumps and the Excuse.

The oudlers

The trump 1 (petit), the trump 21, and the Excuse. These three are the cards the whole scoring turns on.

The Excuse

It is not a trump and cannot win a trick. Play it and you keep it, handing a worthless card back to whoever won that trick.

Card values, counted in pairs with a plain card

Each oudler and each king 4.5, queen 3.5, knight 2.5, jack 1.5, and every other card 0.5.

The bidding

Six cards are set aside as the chien. Bids in rising order: petite, garde, garde sans le chien, garde contre le chien. The taker plays alone against everyone else. In the first two the taker takes the chien into hand and discards the same number face down; in the last two the chien goes to one side or the other unseen.

The target

How many points the taker needs depends on how many oudlers they finish with: 56 with none, 51 with one, 41 with two, 36 with all three. That is the whole reason the petit is fought over so hard.

The play

Follow suit if you can. If you cannot, you must play a trump, and you must play a higher trump than any already played if you hold one. Highest trump wins.

Defenders score together, so a five-handed game has one taker against four — unless the taker calls a king before the deal is looked at, making its holder a silent partner.

French tarot: an example game

One game of French tarot followed from the deal to the finish, move by move, with the reason for each choice.

The deal

Four players: you, Ada, Bo and Cleo, in that order round the table. Cleo deals eighteen cards each and six to the chien, so you speak first and lead first.

Your hand has nine trumps — the 21, 19, 17, 15, 12, 9, 6, 4 and the petit — and in the suits: king, queen, seven and three of hearts; king, ten, nine and five of clubs; the two of diamonds; no spades. Two oudlers, the 21 and the petit, and plenty of trumps to protect the petit.

The bid

With two oudlers you need 41 points, and you already hold 4.5 + 4.5 for the oudlers and 9 for two kings. You bid garde, which doubles whatever the hand pays. Ada, Bo and Cleo all pass, so you are the taker against the three of them.

A garde sans would pay twice as much again, but you would have to play without seeing the chien, and with a void in spades and a single diamond you want those six cards.

The chien and the discard

The chien is turned up for everyone to see: the king of diamonds, the knight of hearts, the 13 of trumps, the eight of spades, the five of diamonds and the two of clubs. You take all six into your hand, which is now twenty-four cards, and put six back.

You keep the kings and the trumps, and put down the eight of spades, the two and five of diamonds, the two and five of clubs and the three of hearts. That leaves you void in spades again, with ten trumps. The six cards are worth only 3 points, but they are yours at the end and cannot be lost.

The first tricks

You lead the king of hearts while everyone still has hearts, and it wins with three low cards: 6 points. The king of clubs does the same, except that Cleo plays the Excuse on it. She keeps the Excuse, and since she has not won a trick yet she has no half-point card to give you in exchange, so your trick is simply a card short.

Later Cleo wins a trick and leads a low spade. You are void, so you must trump, and you play the 4. Ada is void too and has to play over it, with the 10, and Bo puts the king of spades on his partner's trick. 4.5 points to the defence: trumping low invites an overtrump when someone behind you is void as well.

Saving the petit

Bo leads trumps to hunt the petit. Each time, you have to play over the highest trump on the table if you can, and with the 21, 19 and 17 you always can, so the petit stays in your hand. A few rounds of trumps later you have counted all eleven trumps the defenders started with.

With no trump left anywhere but yours, you lead the petit. Nobody can beat it, and it is safe in your pile. Your queen and knight of hearts and the king of diamonds take their tricks later on.

The count

Your tricks and the chien come to 47 points, with two oudlers: the 21 and the petit. The target with two oudlers is 41, so the garde is made by 6 points.

The hand pays (25 + 6) × 2 = 62. Ada, Bo and Cleo each pay you 62, so you score +186 and they score −62 each. Had Bo caught the petit, you would have finished with one oudler, a target of 51 and roughly 42 points — a garde lost, and you paying all three.