Play French tarot against the computer

Setting up a table of bots

French tarot here is for four or five players. Open a table and press "Add an opponent" once per bot: three bots with you is the classic four-handed game, and four bots make the five-handed game with a called king.

The one table rule is how long the evening is: 3, 6 or 9 hands. Only the host can seat bots, and only before the first hand.

What a bot can see

Its own cards and the tricks played to the table, and nothing else. Hands are kept on the server, so a bot cannot see what you hold, and only a bot that takes with a petite or a garde ever sees the chien.

At five, a bot does not know who holds the called king until that card is played, just like everybody else. Bots take about a second per card, so you can follow every trick.

How the bots bid and play

A bot counts its trumps and adds two for every oudler. Eight is a petite, eleven a garde, fourteen a garde sans, and it never bids a garde contre. When it takes the chien it puts back its least valuable cards; at five it calls a king it does not hold.

In the play it leads its highest card, usually its highest trump, takes a trick with the cheapest card that wins it, and plays its lowest card when it cannot win or when its own side is already winning. That makes it predictable: it often ruffs a plain suit with its lowest trump — sometimes the petit — and it plays the Excuse at the first trick it cannot win.

How to beat them

Watch for the petit. A bot that is void in a suit ruffs with its lowest trump, so when it plays before you and you are void in that suit as well, play a higher trump and the petit is yours. Many hands against bots are won on exactly that trick.

The bots never put points on their partner's winning trick, so as taker you lose fewer kings and queens than you would against people. And because they bid by count alone, a hand they pass on can still be a garde for you.

Bots and people together

Invite friends with the code and let bots take the empty chairs. Bots take about a second over each bid, call and discard, so a table of bots never holds the people up.

After each hand everyone presses "Ready for the next hand"; bots are ready at once. If somebody leaves mid-game a bot plays their seat, and if their connection drops it is held for twenty-five seconds and handed back when they return.