Le Tarot Françias

This is a very, very, very old trick-taking game game that was introduced into France sometime in the 16th century, most likely through Italy. The goal of the game is to have the most number of points after a series of hands.

Number of Players

The game may be played with 4 players (with variants for different numbers).

Set Up

• Any French-suited tarot deck will suffice
• Something to keep score

Assemble 4 players. The players all agree on a number of hands that will be played. Shuffle the deck. Next, deal one card to the middle and then deal 3 cards to each player. Continue this until there are 18 cards in each player’s hand and 6 in the middle, called the “chien”. The player to the right of the dealer goes first in bidding.

Game Play

Each player makes a bid trying to outbid the other. If no bids are made, all players “throw in their” hands by giving their cards to the dealer, who also picks up the chien, and hands the deck to the next dealer to shuffle and start a new game. The winner of the bid is called the “taker”.

Bids (from lowest to highest)

• Petite - If the bid, the taker will take the chien after showing it to the other players.
• Garde - If the bid, it is the same as petite but a higher bid.
• Garde sans le chien - If the bid, nobody looks at the chien but the taker will get it once all cards are discarded and played.
• Garde contre le chien - If the bid, nobody looks at it and the opponents get the points once all cards are discarded and played.

If petite or garde were the bids, the taker shows the chien to the other players and places them in their hand, they now discard face down 6 cards that are not atouts, kings, or the excuse (fool). If they cannot discard anything, they may discard atouts that are not a bout (1, 21, or excuse).

Tricks

Each round is called a “trick”. The taker plays a card from their hand called “leading”. All players must play a card from the suit of that card, preferably higher. If they do not have any cards of that suit, they may play an atout card. If an atout is the highest suit, an atouts must be played. The winner of the trick is the one with the highest card of that suit or atouts. The play order starts with the taker and proceeds to the right until all players play a card. And this is the end of the trick. The winner of the trick takes all the cards and places them into their trick pile. They will now lead the next trick. For example, if there are 2 atouts played: 21 and 5. In this case, the winner of the trick is the player who played 21.

Pip Rankings

Pips have different definitions of what is high depending on the suit. With the black suits (clubs and spades), 10 is the highest valued pip and 1, or Ace, is the lowest. The red suits (diamonds and hearts) have the ranking of the pips reversed, which means 1, or Ace, is the highest ranking pip and 10 is the lowest.

Card Values

Each card has a value when won in a trick. The following are their values:

• Bouts (21, 1, and excuse) = 4.5 points each
• Kings is 4.5 points each
• Queens is 3.5 points each
• Knights is 2.5 points each
• Jacks is 1.5 points each
• Everything else: 0.5 points each

The Excuse

Playing the excuse is an irregularity in the rules. If a player has the excuse in their hand, they may play it at any time regardless of what was led or the player has that suit. However, the excuse may not win the trick.

If the trick is led with the excuse, the next player determines the suit.

If the excuse is not played on the last trick, the player who played the excuse will keep the card in their trick pile regardless if they won the trick or not. If the player playing the excuse is not the winner of the trick, they must hand over from their trick pile a 0.5 card (more on this later) and hand it to the winner. If they do not have a 0.5 card, the moment they do, they must hand it to the player that had an excuse played during their winning trick.

If the excuse is played on the last trick, the winner of the trick gets the excuse.

End of the Hand

The hand ends once there are no more cards in any player’s hands.

Scoring Bonuses

Poignée

Before play starts, if a player has a certain number of atouts, they will gain a poignée bonus. They are as follows:

• 10 atouts is 20 points (single poignée)
• 13 atouts is 30 points (double poignée)
• 15 atouts is 40 points (triple poignée)

To declare a poignée, the player with the correct numbers must show them before the first trick is played. The excuse is, for the purposes of a poignée, counted as an atout. The winner of the hand gets the poignée, even if they are not the one who declared it.

Petit au bout

If the 1 of atouts is played in the last trick, the winner of the trick gets 10 points.

Chelem

If a player takes all the tricks in the game, they will score a bonus if announced in advance.

• Chelem annoncé - a player (often the taker) announces chelem before the beginning of play. If they succeed, they receive 400 points. If they fail, they lose 200 points.
• Chelem non annoncé - a player wins all the tricks without announcing it and receives 200 points.

Scoring

At this point, the taker counts their trick pile points and the opposing players pool their tricks and count their card points.

First, the bid is applied. If petit, garde, or garde sans le chien bids were made, the chien cards are added to the taker’s trick pile. If the bid was garde contre le chien, these are added to the opponent’s trick pile.

Now, calculate the points won or lost by the taker. First, the taker receives 25 points. Next, determine the card point difference from a value based on how many bouts the player has. For the following bouts won the taker subtracts:

• 3 bouts means a taker subtracts 36 card points
• 2 bouts means a taker subtracts 41 card points
• 1 bout means a taker subtracts 51 card points
• 0 bouts means a taker subtracts 56 card points

Then, apply the petit au bout bonus if acquired or subtract if the opponents acquired it. Next, multiply the value by the bid:

• For petite, multiply by 1
• For garde, multiply by 2
• For garde sans le chien, multiply by 4
• For garde contre le chien, multiply by 6

Now, apply any poignée or chelem bonus. For example, by losing chelem annoncé, the taker will lose that many points.

If the taker has a positive score, the players lose that many points and the players lose that many points and the taker’s score is multiplied by the number of opponents. If the taker has a negative score, the players each earn that many points and the taker loses that many points times the number of opponents. At all times, the total score earned by each player of a given hand is 0.

Winning the Game

After all agreed upon hands are played, calculate the total scores. The player with the highest score wins.

Variants

For 2 Players

Each player is dealt 36 cards in groups of 6 cards. The poignée atouts are changes as follows:

• Single poignée requires 15 atouts
• Double poignée requires 18 atouts
• Triple poignée requires 21 atouts.

Otherwise, the rules are the same as four-player French Tarot.

For 3 Players

Each player is dealt 24 cards in groups of 4 cards. The poignée atouts are changed as follows:

• Single poignée requires 13 atouts
• Double poignée requires 15 atouts
• Triple poignée requires 18 atouts.

Otherwise, the rules are the same as four-player French Tarot.

For 5 Players

Each player is dealt 14 cards in groups of 2 cards. The chien contains 7 cards. Otherwise, the rules are the same as four-player French Tarot. The poignée atouts are changed as follows:

• Single poignée requires 5 atouts
• Double poignée requires 8 atouts
• Triple poignée requires 10 atouts.

Teams

Players are divided into groupings matching the number of players. For example, if you have 8 people, there will be 4 teams of players