How to play Piquet
The rules of Piquet, and a game played out one move at a time.
Piquet has a lot of rules, and they are all below. If you would rather see them than read them, press play. We deal one short game on the real table, you as the elder hand, and stop on every move to say what happened and why.
Press play and we deal a short game of Piquet on the real table. It stops on every move and says what just happened and what you could do next.
The pack and the deal
Take the twos to sixes out of a standard pack and you have the 32 Piquet uses, sevens up to aces. Two people, twelve cards each, dealt in twos. The last eight go face down in the middle as the stock.
Whoever did not deal is the elder hand. The elder exchanges first, announces first and leads the first trick, which is a real advantage, and that is why the deal swaps sides every hand.
The exchange
The elder throws away one to five cards and takes the same number off the top of the stock. Then the younger hand, the dealer, throws away at least one and takes from what is left. Nobody ever sees the other side's discards.
Leftovers have rules too. An elder who takes fewer than five may look at the rest of those five, privately. A younger who leaves cards in the stock may lay them face up for both of you once the elder has led.
Dealt a hand with no jack, queen or king? Say carte blanche before you discard and it scores ten. The twelve cards get shown once the other side has made their exchange.
Point, sequences, sets
After the exchange the elder announces three things, in order. Point is your longest suit, one per card. A sequence is three or more in a row in one suit: three for a tierce, four for a quart, and from five up the length plus ten. A set is three or four of a kind from tens up: three for a trio, fourteen for a quatorze.
The younger answers each one. Good gives it to the elder. Not good means the younger holds longer and announces it after the elder's first lead. Equal means the same length, so it goes to the higher pips for a point (ace eleven, court cards ten), the higher top card for a sequence, the higher rank for a set. A dead heat scores for nobody.
Win a category and every combination you announced in it scores. You never have to announce your best, and hiding a combination is called sinking it, but what you do not say cannot score. Once the first card is led, either of you may ask to see what scored.
The tricks and the bonuses
Twelve tricks, no trumps. Follow the suit led if you can; the higher card of that suit wins, and the winner leads next. You score a point for every lead, a point for winning a trick your opponent led, and a point for the last trick. Most tricks is ten more, and all twelve is capot, forty.
Two bonuses make the big swings. Reach thirty in declarations before your opponent has scored anything and that is repique, sixty. As the elder, reach thirty during the play while the dealer is still on nothing and that is pique, thirty.
Six deals and the Rubicon
A partie is six deals. Level after six, you play two more, and level after eight is a draw. Otherwise the higher total wins.
The loser decides the price. If they reach a hundred, the result is a hundred plus the difference between you. Short of a hundred, they are rubiconed, and it is a hundred plus both totals added together. Which is why nobody gives up in the fifth deal.