Did you know that Tarot cards aren’t just for fortune-telling? Here’s how to play Tarot, a traditional French card game.
We first learned how to play Tarot when Brad and I were cycling in Southern France. We were stuck at a youth hostel in Cassis for a few days because the road was closed for a race.
This wasn’t something we were prepared for. We weren’t planning for a day off and hadn’t packed enough food. Luckily the other guests at the hostel were happy to share their food. They also taught us how to play tarot. We must have made a good impression because they invited us to stay with them in their apartment in the 13e arrondissement of Paris. 🙂
We liked the game so much, that we bought a deck of tarot cards and brought the game home with us.
Here’s how we play tarot following the rules of our Parisian friends.
1. The basics
Tarot is a classic, trick-taking game. It follows all the usual trick-taking rules. (Following the suit, trumping when you can’t follow suit, the highest card wins). The basics of how to play are just like hearts, bridge, whist, etc.
If you don’t know how to play a trick-taking game start with hearts or whist. Tarot is a bit more advanced.
Here’s how to play hearts. Even though the goal of tarot is to win cards, the play mechanism is pretty similar to hearts. If you don’t have 4 people to play hearts with, you can probably download an app for your phone. Like solitaire and freecell, hearts was one of those games that used to come for free on every home PC.
2. The cards
There are two kinds of tarot cards:
–> Tarot fortune-telling cards typically aren’t well-marked with suits and numbers. The suits are usually cups, rods, swords, and pentacles, instead of traditional suits. They tend to have lots of fancy artwork and are hard to play with.
–> Tarot playing cards have clear markings, making them easy to read. These are hard to find unless you happen to be in France. (There’s a competitive French Tarot Federation!)
Here’s what you need to know about the tarot deck:
- It has 4 suites (♠️♥️♦️♣️) AND a trump suit.
- The top four cards in each suit, in order of strength, are: R (Roi), D (Dame), C (Cavalier), and V (Valet).
- The trump suit goes from 1 to 21, with 1 being the lowest and 21 being the highest.
- There are three oudlers. (Practice your French accent. It’s pronounced oo-d-lay). These cards are the most important in the deck when it comes to points and bidding. The oudlers are:
- Trump Card 1: The lowest trump card and easy to lose if you’re not careful.
- Trump Card 21: The highest trump card and a guaranteed win.
- L’excuse: A card that allows you to not follow suit or trump. When you play it, you simply swap it for a low-value card from a trick that you’ve already taken.
3. Dealing
The game is played with 3 to 5 players. All the cards are dealt, however, there is always a chien (translates to dog, but is similar to a kitty in cribbage).
- The last card dealt cannot be in the chien.
- The cards are not shuffled between hands. They are just cut by the person to the left of the dealer. So no one should sort their cards until someone has taken the bid. While this seems strange, it makes it more likely that people will get good hands.
- Tarot is traditionally played with 4-players.
- Deal cards 3 at a time to each player, placing 1 card in the chien each time you go around. In the end, everyone will have 18 cards and the chien has 6 cards.
4. Bidding
Bidding is what makes tarot fun! Good players probably re-deal a lot. Only Una is patient enough to wait for a good hand. As a result, we don’t win often. 😂
Here’s the key to bidding:
–> There is only one round of bidding, with each player having the option to pass or bid at the next level. And you can’t jump-bid so usually hands are taken at the lowest bid-level.
There are 4 bid levels (because it’s typically a 4 person game). Here are the 4 levels (starting with the lowest).
- Petite: The bidder gets the chien cards to improve their hand. And they get to remove 6 cards from their hand, which will be counted in their final score. The removed cards cannot be a Roi or an Oudler. (We often fill it with our Valet and Cavalier)
- Grade: This is the same as petite, except everyone gets to see the card in the chien before the bidder puts them in their hand.
- Garde sans le chien: No one gets to see what is in the chien, but the cards count towards the bidder’s points.
- Garde contre le chien: No one gets to see what is in the chien, and the cards count towards the opponents of the bidder’s points.
5. Scoring
Scoring is a bit tricky. I’m not sure why… but it probably evolved out of tradition… it also gives players time for a refreshment break mid-game.
Counting points:
Here is how to count points:
- The tricks are collected by the bidder and everyone else works together to prevent them from making their bid.
- Cards are paired for counting points. All of the regular cards are worth 1/2 point. So you can pair the 13 of trump with the 5♦️ and they are worth 1 point.
- The face cards and oudlers are worth more points. And they all must be paired with a regular card when counting points.
- Each oudler is worth 4.5 points. (For example, L’escuse paired with a 7♠️ is worth 5 points).
- The Rois are worth 4.5 points.
- The Dames are worth 3.5 points.
- The Cavaliers are worth 2.5 points.
- The Valets are worth 1.5 points.
- There are 91 points total in the tarot deck. We usually count both cards for both the bidder and the opposing team to make sure it all adds up nicely. It’s easy to make a mistake.
Calculating the score
The game ends whenever the players decide to stop playing. We usually do 4 hands so everyone gets a chance to deal. (It was previously a gambling game, so it probably ended when someone ran out of money.)
There are different ways to score and lots of options for calculating bonus points. We just stick to the basic scoring. We’re not playing for money. 😉
- The bidder is required to get a certain number of points to win. The amount required is based on how many oudlers they have taken in their tricks.
- All 3 Oudlers: Must get at least 36 points.
- 2 Oudlers: Must get at least 41 points.
- 1 Oudlers: Must get at least 51 points.
- No Oudlers: Must get at least 56 points.
- The score is calculated for the winner of the game (either the bidder or the 3 opponents). It is 25 points for winning the game + the difference between the required number of points and the actual number of points. This score is multiplied by the bid level.
- Petite is multiplied by 1
- Garde is multiplied by 2
- Garde sans chien is multiplied by 4
- Garde contre chien is multiplied by 6
Tallying the final score
I decided to break tallying out of calculating the score because it’s also quite complicated the first time you do it.
- The final score in each round must always sum to zero. This means every player either gets a positive or a negative score.
- If the bidder wins, the score is deducted from each of the opposing players, and the bidder ends up with 3x the calculated score.
- If the opponents win, then they each get the calculated score. And the bidder gets the sum of their scores subtracted from their final score.
An example of calculating the score
If the bidder got 54 points when they counted the cards and they had 1 oudler, they only needed 51 points to win.
- They start with 3 points for that win. (54-51=3)
- Add 25 points for winning the game. So now their score is 28. (25+3=28)
- If they bid at the garde level, then that score is multiplied by 2. Now their score is 56. (28×2)
- Each of the opponents gets -56 points for the round.
- The bidder gets 168 points for the round. (56×3=168)
–> If the opposing team had won in the example above, each player would get 56 points, and the bidder would get -168 instead.
Phew… like I said, I’m pretty sure calculating the score was designed to allow people to take a break between hands.
The scores can add up pretty quickly. And in our household, Una usually wins because she is a less risky bidder, and the rest of us all end up with negative scores.
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