Piquet Card Game Rules

Deal and Exchange

To start, draw a card and the player with the highest one gets to choose who deals first (there is an advantage to dealing first). The dealer (called the "younger hand," while the other player is the "elder hand") deals 12 cards to both players, leaving eight cards placed face down in the middle as a "talon." The players then exchange cards, discarding one to five cards and replacing them from the talon; elder hand goes first. A player dealt a hand with no face cards can declare "carte blanche" and score 10 points. The player must announce it as soon as it's noticed and prove it by dealing the cards face up. This is done after the opponent discards but before the carte blanche player discards. If the elder has carte blanche, that player announces the number of cards he will discard so the younger can choose her number before seeing the elder's cards.

After the exchange, the players look for combinations in their hand to score points. Three cards of the same suit score three points, while four such cards score four points, five scores 15, six scores 16, seven scores 17 and eight scores 18. Three of a kinds that are made up of 10s or higher scores three points and four of a kind scores 14. If players have the same type of combination, the combination with the highest value wins (ace counts 11, face cards count 10 and the others count their numeric value). The elder declares his best combination first. If the younger doesn't have a better combo, the younger says "good" and the elder gets the points. If the younger can beat the combination, she says "no good;" if she has the same combo, she says "equal," and the elder announces his combo's value to see if it's "good" or "not good." Only the player with the best combination gets points for all of their combinations. If the combos are tied in value, no one scores. After the elder's declaration, the elder plays a card for the first trick and the younger records her points.

Each player who leads a trick gets one point for the lead. The player with the highest card of the lead suit wins the trick and the right to lead the next trick. A player must follow suit if possible, and there are no trumps. The player who wins the most tricks wins 10 points, but gets 40 for winning all of the tricks. No one gets points if the tricks are tied. After the tricks, the cards are dealt again with the dealer (younger hand) alternating. Whoever has the most points after six deals wins. If the score is tied after six deals, two more are played. The match is a draw if the score is still tied after that.

If a player scores 30 points in declarations alone before the other player scores anything, that player gets 60 bonus points. If a player scores 30 total points before the other scores, that player gets 30 extra points. Only the elder can get the 30-point bonus since he always scores a point on the first hand for leading the first trick.