The rules of Piquet

Yesterday, boredom resulted in a friend and I finding a two-player card game that’s actually interesting. It’s called Piquet. However, even the best set of rules we found took us a while to understand, and there are competing older rulesets that actually describe different versions of the game that antedate the current one, so learning the game took us two or three hours and several botched games. So, after figuring out that the rules are in fact relatively simple, I’m writing and posting an easy-to-understand set of rules in case anyone else is looking for one.

Introduction & the deal

Piquet is an exclusively two-player game. It is played with a shortened deck, with the twos through the sixes removed, leaving only the aces, face cards, and tens through sevens in the deck. Aces are high. A game of piquet consists of six hands, each player trying to attain more points than the other overall by the end of the sixth hand. At the beginning of the game, each player cuts the deck for high card, with the winner choosing who deals the first hand. The dealer alternates for the remaining five hands, so each player deals three times. Each time a player’s score increases, he is required to announce his current score in that hand.

At the beginning of each hand, each player is dealt twelve cards, with the remaining eight placed face down in the center of the table, making up the stock. The non-dealer is referred to as the elder hand, and the dealer the younger hand.

If either player has a hand with no face cards, he has the option of declaring carte blanche and earning 10 points. This is done by saying “carte blanche” and briefly showing the hand to the other player. The game continues to its next phase, “the exchange.”

The Exchange

The exchange allows each player to improve his hand by switching some of his cards with the cards in the stock. The elder hand exchanges first.

The elder hand selects one to five cards in his hand that he wants to exchange, places them face down in front of him, and removes the same number of cards from the top of the stock, adding those cards to his hand. If the elder hand exchanges less than five cards, he must announce how many cards he is exchanging to the younger hand. Also, he may look at the cards left in the stock which he would have gotten if he had exchanged five (e.g., if he exchanges two, he may look at the next three, which will be the first three that the younger hand exchanges for).

Next, the younger hand exchanges. He may select any number of cards to discard from his hand that is at least one and at most the number of cards remaining in the stock. He discards these cards, placing them face down in front of him, and removes that many cards from the top of the stock. If he exchanges less than the maximum number of cards, he must announce how many cards he is exchanging to the elder hand. Also, if cards remain in the stock at the end of the exchange, the younger hand may flip them over, exposing them to both players, but is not required to.

Throughout the game, each player may look at the cards he discarded in the exchange. Play now passes to the declarations phase.

Declarations

Declarations are a process by which one earns points for having certain combinations of cards in their hand in exchange for showing those combinations to the other player. (In this way, carte blanche can be thought of as a declaration, but it is separate from the other declarations as it takes place before the exchange.)

All declarations are optional. Neither player is required to declare anything except when disputing a declaration that has already been made as outlined below. Players may declare combinations that are worse than the combinations they actually have, to avoid giving information to the other player, but may not declare combinations better than those that they have (as they will be required to show the cards that make up the combination). There are three categories of declarations, each described below.

• The first kind of combination that may be declared is point. Point is simply a number of cards in one suit in a player’s hand, analogous to a flush in poker. If one is declaring that one has five such cards, one says “point of five.” A point declaration is worth as many points as the number of cards in it. (So the above scenario would yield 5 points.)
• The second kind of combination is called a sequence. Sequences are runs of at least three cards in order and in the same suit, like straight flushes in poker. If one is declaring a sequence of four cards, one says “run of four.” A sequence declaration is worth 3 and 4 points for sequences of three and four cards, respectively, and 15 through 18 points for sequences of five through eight cards, respectively. A single card may not be used in multiple sequence declarations.
• The third and last kind of combination is called a set. Sets are threes-of-a-kind (called trios) or fours-of-a-kind (called quatorzes). However, they may only be made up of cards which are ten and above. If one is declaring a trio made up of kings, one says “trio of kings.” A trio declaration is worth 3 points, and a quatorz declaration is worth 14. A single card may not be used in multiple set declarations.

Elder hand declares first, in the order the combinations are listed above.

First, he declares point, if he wishes. If younger hand does not wish to make a greater point declaration, or cannot, he responds with “good” and elder hand shows the cards making up the point briefly, and scores the declaration. If younger hand does wish to make a greater point declaration, he responds with “not good”, and the declaration from elder hand is rescinded and not scored, and declarations move to sequences. If younger hand wishes to make the same point declaration, he responds with “equal”. Elder hand then counts the value of the cards he is declaring for point, with aces worth eleven, face cards worth ten, and the rest worth their face value, and he responds with this number to younger hand. If younger hand’s point declaration has less value, he responds with “good” and elder shows the cards and scores the declaration. If it has greater value, he responds with “not good” and declarations move to sequences. If they have exactly the same value, he responds with “equal” again and both players show their cards and neither gets points.

Next, the same process occurs with sequences. Elder declares a sequence, younger responds with “good” if he does not intend to declare a better sequence, “not good” if he will, or “equal” if more information is required. If equal, elder says the rank of the highest card in the sequence, and younger responds with “good” if his sequence is lower rank, “not good” if his is better, or “equal” if they are exactly equal. If elder wins the declaration he may declare all the sequences he has in his hand (but if he loses he may not try again with a better declaration), showing and scoring them all. If he loses, the declarations move to sets. If they are exactly equal, both players show their declared cards and neither gets points.

Finally, the same process occurs with sets. Elder declares a set, younger responds with “good” or “not good” or “equal”. In the case of equal, any quatorz outranks any trio, and then higher cards outrank lower cards. If elder wins the declaration he may declare all the sets he has in his hand (but if he loses he may not try again with a better declaration), showing and scoring them all. If they are exactly equal, both players show their declared cards and neither gets points.

At this time, elder places the card that he intends to play first in the next phase of the game face up on the table to indicate he has completed his declarations. Younger hand then makes declarations in the same order indicated above. He may not declare anything in any category elder won, is allowed but not required to declare anything in categories elder did not declare, and is required to make declarations in categories he replied that elder was “not good” in. As above, he shows the cards that make up each declaration briefly, and scores them, and may declare all the sequences and sets in his hand if he won those categories. Younger touches the card elder placed on the table to indicate he has completed his declarations.

At this time, if either player has 30 or more points and the other player has none, he has made what is called a repique and is awarded 60 additional points (but is ineligible for a pique, to be explained later). He should mention this and score it, or it is forefit. The hand now continues in the “play” phase.

The Play

At this point, piquet changes into a rather typical trick-based game. There is no trump, one must follow suit if possible but if not may play any card, and high card in the suit led wins the trick. The player who won the trick leads the next trick. Each time a player leads a trick he gets a point, and if a player wins a trick he did not lead he gets a point. After a trick is taken the cards are discarded face down and may not be looked at again.

To begin this phase, elder hand touches the card on the table again, indicating that he is playing it. (This earns him a point, as described above, so he announces his new score, as noted in the beginning of the introduction.) Play then continues normally, until all cards are exhausted. The player who takes the final trick gains an additional point. Note also that each player may look at his discards from the exchange at any time, but may not play them.

If during the play one player has 30 or more points without a repique and the other has none, he has made a pique and announces this and gains an additional 30 points. Note that this is impossible for younger hand to do as elder hand scores a point for leading the first trick.

At the close of the play, if a player has taken all twelve tricks he has made a cabot and announces this and gains an additional 40 points. Otherwise, each player counts how many tricks he has taken and the player with the most gains 10 points “for the cards.” If both players take six tricks each, no player gains any points for the cards.

Now, players add their current scores to the scores from previous hands (if any) and a new hand is dealt, switching who is dealer as described above, until all six hands have been played. At that time, the player with the highest score is the winner.

Notes

This differs from the rules found on the internet in a few ways. Other rulesets mention crossing the Rubicon, which appears to mean gaining more than 100 points over the course of the game, as important, but it is not clear to me why and this seems more a vestige of an older version of the game or as an addition for gambling purposes. It has been eliminated. Specialized French names for the stock (talon) and whole game (partie) and sequences are sometimes used, I omitted them. Some rulesets have tricks taken placed face up, but it seems more usual to have them placed face down, I followed the majority.

The largest difference is in the rule on repique. The rule here differs from the common rule in that a few declaration strategies which result in repique previously do not here, as one must make 30 or more points “before” the opponent makes any, where carte blanche is counted, then point, sequences, sets, and points in play, in that order. This means that if elder hand declares two sequences of seven and younger hand declares a quatorze, elder hand still gets the repique previously whereas in my rules he does not. These scenarios are sufficiently rare that I decided a simplification of the rules was better for the game, especially since they are already so complicated.

I’m interested in any thoughts anyone has, please leave them in the comments. Also, if anyone wants to play me, I’d be glad to, the game is not nearly as hard to understand as these rules make it sound. It’s really quite easy, just hard to describe. It’s also really very fun, which I thought was a property it was impossible for two-player card games to have.