How to play Chouine
The rules of Chouine, and a game played out one move at a time.
Chouine is a trick game for two: you draw back to five cards after every trick, score for aces, tens and declared combinations, and the higher total wins the partie. Read the rules below, or press play and we deal a short partie on the real table and stop at each step to say what happened and why.
Press play and we deal a short game of Chouine on the real table. It stops on every move and says what just happened and what you could do next.
The pack and the card values
Two of you, and a 32-card pack: seven up to ace in each suit. A suit ranks ace, ten, king, queen, jack, nine, eight, seven. Each card has a value in points: aces are worth 11, tens 10, kings 4, queens 3, jacks 2, and the nines, eights and sevens nothing. Aces and tens are called brisques.
That is 120 points of cards, and 84 of them sit in the eight brisques. Taking the last trick adds 10 points, the dix de der, so a partie, which is one deal, has 130 points in it before anyone declares a combination.
The deal and the trump
The table shuffles, picks the first dealer at random, and after that the deal alternates. You each get a hand of five cards. The next card is turned face up and its suit is trumps. The other 21 cards lie face down as the talon, with the turned-up card under them.
The non-dealer leads the first trick, and the winner of each trick leads the next.
Playing the tricks
A trick is two cards, one from each hand: on this table you click a card to play it. The higher card of the suit led wins. If the suits differ and one is a trump, the trump wins. If they differ and neither is a trump, the card that led wins. Say hearts are trumps and you lead the king of spades. The ace of spades beats it, the seven of hearts beats it, and the nine of clubs does not.
While the talon has cards in it, nobody has to follow suit or beat the card led. Play anything. The winner draws the top card of the talon without showing it, the loser draws the next, and you are both back to a hand of five.
At trick eleven the last two cards are drawn: the winner takes the final face-down card and the loser takes the turned-up trump.
Declaring combinations
A mariage is a king and queen of one suit: 20 points in a non-trump suit, 40 in trumps. A tierce, king, queen and jack, is 30 points, or 60 in trumps, and it scores its own points, not a mariage on top. A quateron, ace, king, queen and jack, is 40 or 80. A quinte is any five brisques, 50 points; that is the figure in Jacques Proust's rules text, which we follow, where the Pagat rules site says 100. A chouine is ace, ten, king, queen and jack of one suit, and it wins the partie.
To declare, click a card that belongs to the combination and press the Declare button that names it. All of the combination's cards must be in your hand at that moment, and the card you play from it breaks it up. You may declare when you lead or when you follow, at any trick. Say hearts are trumps and you play the queen of hearts naming a mariage: when the trick is done you show the king and the 40 points count.
You get one declaration in each suit and one quinte a partie, so a tierce in hearts uses up hearts. A chouine takes effect when its trick ends. If both of you declare one in the same trick, the trump chouine wins, and if neither is in trumps, the player who led wins. Pagat adds a reminder: once a king or queen of a suit has been played, no combination in that suit is possible, and that suit's king, queen and jack are useless for declaring.
The seven of trumps
If you hold the seven of trumps you may swap it for the turned-up trump at any time before the lead to trick eleven. Pagat says you should always do it, but that it pays to wait until you are ready to use the card you take.
Before that lead the table stops and asks the seat that will follow whether to swap or carry on, unless the seven is itself the turned-up trump or has already been played. It asks whatever you hold, so the question gives nothing away.
The last five tricks
With the talon gone, the leader is still free to play any card from their hand, but the second player to a trick has rules. Follow suit if you can. If a trump was led, play a higher trump if you have one, otherwise any trump. If you cannot follow a non-trump suit, play a trump if you have one, and it wins the trick. With neither, play anything. Following a non-trump suit never forces you to play higher.
On this table a card you cannot play is dimmed, and the line above your hand tells you why. Sixteen tricks make a partie.
Scoring, and how a match ends
Each seat adds up the card points in its tricks, the 10 points for the last trick, and the combinations it declared. The higher total wins the partie. If the totals are level, nobody scores and the same dealer deals again.
The host chooses a match of best of three parties or best of five when the table is made; on the computer table you pick with the Best of 3 and Best of 5 buttons. The first to two parties in a best of three, or three in a best of five, wins the match. That is one manche of the traditional game, with no deciding third manche, the one called la belle. In French a partie is usually called a point, and a best of five is cinq points de Chouine; we say partie so it is not confused with the points on the cards.