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.