The Piquet card game, online, with a friend or the computer

The exchange, the declarations, then the tricks

Thirty-two playing cards, seven up to ace in each suit. You and whoever is in the other seat get twelve each, dealt in twos, and the last eight sit face down as the stock. Whoever did not deal is the elder hand and goes first: throw between one and five cards away and take the same number off the top of the stock. The dealer, the younger hand, takes what is left, at least one. That is the whole exchange, and it is where most hands are won or lost, because what you keep decides your point, your sequences and your sets before a single trick is played. The table shows how many cards remain in the stock, and the log says how many each side took.

Next come the declarations, and they are yours to make. Your longest suit is your point. A run of three or more in one suit is a sequence. Three or four of a kind from tens upward is a set. The elder hand announces a point, then a sequence, then a set, and the younger answers good, not good, or equal. Equal is settled by the pips, or by the top card of a sequence, and a dead heat scores for neither. Whoever wins a category scores every combination they announced in it, and nothing else.

Then twelve tricks. The elder hand leads, you follow suit when you can, and the higher card of the led suit wins. No trumps anywhere. One point for each lead, one for taking a trick your opponent led, one for the last trick, ten for winning most of the twelve, and forty for capot, which is winning all of them.

How the scoring adds up

Point is one per card in the suit, so a five-card point is five. A sequence of three is three, four is four, and from five upward it is the length plus ten. Three of a kind is a trio for three, four of a kind is a quatorze for fourteen, and only tens, jacks, queens, kings and aces count, so three sevens are worth nothing. When two suits tie for length the pips settle it, with an ace at eleven and a court card at ten. Keep the ace.

Now the bonuses. Carte blanche is a dealt hand with no jack, queen or king, worth ten. Reach thirty in declarations before your opponent has scored a single point and that is repique, sixty more. As the elder hand, reach thirty during the play while the dealer still sits at zero and that is pique, thirty more. Those two swings decide close matches, and the panel shows each one the moment it lands.

The timing rule matters here, and the table keeps it for you: the elder hand's declarations score before the first card, the dealer's only after that first lead, and that first lead is also when either of you may start asking to see what scored. Repique counts its thirty in a fixed order, carte blanche, then point, then sequences, then sets, so a better point can take a repique off a hand that reached thirty on sequences alone.

Six deals, two more if tied, and the Rubicon

A match is six deals, the deal changing hands every time. If the totals are level after six you play two more, both of them, whatever the seventh does, and if they are still level after eight the table calls it a draw. Otherwise the higher final total wins, and the result is written as points.

The Rubicon is the hundred mark, and it applies to the loser. Cross it and the result is a hundred plus the difference between the two totals. Fall short and you are rubiconed: a hundred plus both totals added together. Losing badly costs more than losing narrowly, which is what makes the last two deals tense.

Where the game and these rules come from

Piquet is old. The two sources this table was built from, the 1911 Britannica entry and John McLeod’s rules page, agree it was well established by 1650, and that something like it was in print a century earlier, Rabelais included, though whether that was quite the same game nobody can say. It reached England as cent, probably around 1550, and took its French name in the mid-1600s. The Rubicon game, six deals and the hundred mark, is the late-1800s form the Portland Club wrote its laws for in 1882, and it is the form this table follows. McLeod calls it one of the best and most skilful card games for two, and having built the scoring we are not going to argue.

Every rules page on the subject tells you this and then stops. None of them deals you a hand. Britannica and Wikipedia will explain a quatorze; this table deals the cards, counts them, and leaves it to you whether to mention the one you are holding.

Sinking, showing, and what your opponent gets to see

You are never made to announce your best. Name a shorter point than you hold, leave a tierce unsaid, or say nothing at all in a category: that is sinking, and it is half the game. The table will not let you announce a combination you do not hold, and it will not score one you did not announce. Say good to something you could have beaten and your opponent takes the category with the weaker hand, which is now and then exactly what you want.

What scored is a number until somebody asks. Once the elder has led, either of you may ask to see a combination that scored, or one that scored for nobody because it was equal, and the cards appear only then. A hand dealt with no jack, queen or king is carte blanche for ten, announced before you discard and laid face up once your opponent has thrown. An elder hand who takes fewer than five may look at the rest of his five, and nobody else ever sees them; a younger hand who leaves cards may lay them face up for both of you after the elder leads.

The computer plays the same game and sinks nothing: it announces every combination it holds, answers by the length it was told, and asks to see what scored against it. Its card play is basic, and since we built it we can tell you exactly how basic. It always takes its full allowance, and it throws its lowest cards from its shortest suits, keeping long suits and high sets. On lead it plays its highest card; following, the cheapest card that wins, or its lowest if nothing does. It never counts to thirty. An experienced hand will beat it more often than not.

The second seat is a person or the computer, whichever you pick on the way in. A room is one link to send and two seats, and it keeps what Piquet has always kept back: what you announce crosses the table, what you hold does not, and neither your discards nor the stock are ever on their screen.

New match, high contrast, and the three panels

At the computer table, New match starts six fresh deals, and every visit opens on a different hand. Deal next hand appears when a hand is scored, and the counter above the cards tells you which deal you are on and who is dealing. High contrast turns the table grayscale for anyone who finds red and black hard to tell apart, and that one switch is remembered on your device; every card in your hand carries its name in words anyway. Under the table sit three fold-out panels: what has scored so far, your discards and the tricks so far, and a log of recent play.

Nothing about the match is kept. Close the tab and it is gone, because there is no account to hold it. There is surely a Piquet app somewhere; this is a web page, free, with an ad now and then that we will try to keep discreet.