Belote rules

Setup & dealing

Four players form two partnerships, partners opposite: you (South) partner Salka (North) against Fannar (West) and Örn (East). The dealer gives everyone five cards (in packets of three then two) and turns the next card face up in the middle of the table. That turned card drives the bidding.

The deal rotates one seat each hand. Once someone takes, the deal is completed: the taker picks up the turned card and receives two more from the deck, everyone else receives three, so all four players hold exactly eight cards for the eight tricks.

The bidding: take or pass

Bidding is a simple take-or-pass in up to two rounds, starting left of the dealer. In round one, each player in turn may take the turned card's suit as trump, or pass. The first player to take ends the bidding and becomes the taker: their team must now out-score the defenders this hand.

If all four players pass, a second round begins: each player in turn may now name any other suit as trump (the turned suit is off the table) or pass again. Whoever takes - in either round - always picks up the turned card, even when it is not a trump.

Card order & point values

Belote's signature is that the trump suit re-ranks itself: the jack becomes the highest card of the game and the nine the second highest. Plain suits keep the ace on top with the ten right behind it - a ten outranks a king everywhere.

The deck totals 152 points; the team winning the last trick adds 10 (the "dix de der"), so every hand is worth 162 card points before declarations. The trump suit alone carries 62 of them, which is why holding the jack-nine of trumps ("la paire") practically decides most hands.

Trick play: what you must play

The player left of the dealer leads the first trick; after that, each trick's winner leads the next. Belote has the strictest play obligations of any game on this site - the game only ever offers you your legal cards:

• Follow suit if you can. In plain suits any card of the suit is fine - you never have to beat what's already there.
• On a trump lead you must climb. If trumps are led you must play a trump that beats the highest one on the table when you hold one; only if you can't beat it may you play a lower trump. This applies even over your own partner.
• Void in a plain suit? You must trump. If an opponent already trumped the trick, you must overtrump if you can - and if you can't, you must still play a lower trump ("pisser") rather than discard.
• The partner exception. If your partner is currently winning the trick and a plain suit was led, you are free: discard anything or trump, as you please.
• No trumps and void? Play any card - it cannot win the trick.

The trick is won by the highest trump in it, or by the highest card of the led suit if nobody trumped. Off-suit discards never win. Won cards go face down to the team pile for counting at the end of the hand.

Declarations & belote-rebelote

Combinations dealt to you score extra points, announced on the first trick. Sequences use the natural order A-K-Q-J-10-9-8-7 (not the trump order) and must be in one suit: a tierce (three in a row) is 20, a quarte (four) 50 and a quinte (five or more) 100. Four of a kind ("carré") scores 100 for aces, tens, kings or queens, 150 for the four nines and 200 for the four jacks; four eights or sevens count nothing.

Only ONE team scores declarations each hand: the team holding the single strongest one takes everything it declared, the other team's announcements are void. A carré beats any sequence; carrés rank J, 9, A, 10, K, Q; equal-value sequences compare by their top card, then a trump sequence beats a plain one, and a dead tie goes to the player who speaks earlier in the round. One card can never serve in two declarations at once.

Scoring the hand

After the eighth trick each team counts its card points (plus the 10 for the last trick), its scored declarations and its belote. If the taking team's total is at least equal to the defenders', the contract is made and both teams score everything they made. Declarations and belote count toward the comparison.

Going dedans (inside) is the catastrophe the whole game revolves around: the takers lose every card point they won, and the defenders bank the full 162 plus the declarations. A capot - one team winning all eight tricks - replaces the 162 with 252 (the 100-point bonus takes the place of the dix de der), and the swept team forfeits its declarations but keeps a belote if it held one.

Winning the game

Hands are played until a team has 1000 or more points at the end of a hand and leads the other team. Typical hands are worth 160-250 points, so games run five to eight hands. If both teams somehow cross 1000 with equal totals, play simply continues until a hand ends with one team ahead.

Edge cases & fine print

• A tie at 81-81 counts for the takers in this version: making the contract requires at least as many points as the defenders, not strictly more.
• The taker always gets the turned card - in round two as well, even though it is not a trump then.
• You must climb on trump leads even against your partner. The partner exception applies only when a plain suit was led.
• Undertrumping is forced, not optional: void with only small trumps against an opponent's trump, you still play one.
• Declarations are announced on trick one and compared across the table; the losing side's declarations score nothing at all.
• The belote holder can be on the losing side - its 20 points survive dedans and capot alike.
• An 8-card trump suit declares as a quinte plus a tierce (120), never as two overlapping runs.

Variants

What we play is classic French Belote as documented on pagat.com. Popular variants not used here:

• Coinche / Belote contrée - a full auction where teams bid the exact number of points they will make, with double ("coinche") and redouble. A different, more complex game.
• Litige at 81-81 - some tables hold the takers' 81 points in escrow for the winner of the next hand. Here the takers simply make an equal-points contract.
• Rounding to tens - many French clubs round each hand's scores to the nearest 10 and play to 501. We keep exact points to 1000.
• Sans déclarations - tournament play often drops all declarations except belote-rebelote. Ours are on: tierces, quartes, quintes and carrés all score.
• Belote à deux / à trois - the two- and three-player deals. Ours is the standard four-player partnership game.

Frequently asked questions

Related rulebooks

• Pinochle rules - meld the pinochle, bid and race to 1500
• Skat rules - the german classic - bid, declare, defend
• Euchre rules - bowers, trump and 5-trick showdowns
• Whist rules - classic tricks, rotating trump, first to 7