Aluette

Players and equipment

Aluette is a trick-taking game for exactly four players, in two fixed partnerships sitting opposite each other; deal and play both go clockwise. You need a 48-card Spanish-suited pack with Aluette's own designs — coins, cups, batons and swords, king down to ace, no tens — since the suits never decide a trick. Eight cards at the top have nicknames of their own; the rest fill out a strict ladder from high to low.

Monsieur

1

the Three of Coins, the single highest card

Madame

2

the Three of Cups

Le Borgne

3

the Two of Coins, "the blind man"

La Vache

4

the Two of Cups, "the cow" — the game's other name

Grand-neuf

5

the Nine of Cups

Petit-neuf

6

the Nine of Coins

Deux de chêne

7

the Two of Batons, "two of oak"

Deux d'écrit

8

the Two of Swords, "two of writing"

Below those eight, rank runs by face value with no nicknames: aces beat kings, kings beat cavalières (the Spanish-suited card between king and jack), cavalières beat jacks, jacks beat the nines of swords and batons, then eights, sevens, sixes, fives, fours, and at the bottom the threes of swords and batons. Cards within one of these groups are equal, which matters more than it sounds.

The deal

Partnerships are chosen fresh at the start, not picked by the players. Any player turns cards face up from the pack, dealing them one at a time round the table, until Monsieur, Madame, Le Borgne and La Vache have all appeared; whoever is dealt one of those four is dealt no more. Monsieur and Madame play together against Le Borgne and La Vache. Madame deals the first hand, and the turn to deal passes left after every hand.

For each hand proper, the dealer shuffles, the player on the dealer's right cuts, and the dealer deals nine cards each in batches of three — leaving twelve over. Those twelve can stay unused, or, if every player agrees, they go one at a time to the player on the dealer's left and to the dealer, six each; those two then throw away their six weakest cards face down, dropping back to nine. This is chanter, singing, and any single player can veto it — one objection and nobody sings, and the spare twelve stay untouched until the hand is over.

Play

The player to the dealer's left leads to the first trick; after that, whoever won a trick leads the next. There is no suit to follow and no card you are forced to hold back — play any card you like. The trick goes to whoever played the single highest card by the ranking above, with no regard for suit at all.

Because several cards share a rank, ties happen constantly. A tied trick is "spoiled" and nobody takes it; the player who led it leads again to the next one. Play continues until all nine tricks are down.

Sitting last to a trick is a real advantage, since you see what the others threw before you commit. As a rough guide, the first two players tend to play low, the third plays a card worth protecting the trick with, and the fourth either beats it cheaply or sacrifices it by throwing low, handing their partner the strong seat next time. Spoiling a trick on purpose — matching the card ahead of you rather than beating it — keeps the advantage of playing last without giving the trick away.

Aluette is traditionally played loud: partners signal each other's hands with agreed gestures and set phrases, and the table talks its way through a hand. None of that reaches the sheet — play however you agree to, and only the result of each hand goes on the phone.

Scoring

A round on the sheet is one hand of nine tricks. SquareScores never sees a card or a trick — when the hand ends, work out which side won the point and enter it against that side's column for the row; enter 0 for the other side. Nobody's partner combines tricks with them — the point goes by who personally took the most tricks, not by the side's total.

A hand won outright

1

the side of whoever is first to reach the most tricks

Mordienne

2

the winning player took no tricks before an unbroken run that lasts to the ninth trick; many tables play it, not all

A refused surrender, made

2

the other side refused the offer and their player makes mordienne

A refused surrender, missed

2 to the side that offered it

the other side fails to make mordienne after refusing the surrender

If two or more players tie for most tricks, the point goes to whichever of them reached that number first. At the table the first player to win a second trick turns one of its cards face up, and the first to win a third trick turns two of its cards face up, so nobody has to remember who got there when. The app only wants the final point, not the running count.

A side with little chance of winning a hand can offer to surrender before it is played out. Accepted, the other side banks the point with no cards shown; refused, they are committing to make mordienne — two points if they manage it, two points to the surrendering side if they don't.

A worked game

North and South are partners against East and West; five hands are played.

Deal 1

North-South 1

South is first to three tricks

Deal 2

North-South 1

North is first to three tricks

Deal 3

East-West 2

West takes nothing until tricks seven, eight and nine, all running, for mordienne

Deal 4

North-South 1

South is first to three tricks again

Deal 5

North-South 1

North is first to three tricks

North-South finish on 4, East-West on 2, and the table taps End match to bank North-South's win.

Ending

By the usual rule a game is five hands, so the player who dealt the first also deals the last. Whichever side has more points when the fifth hand is done wins the match; any player may tap End match to bank it, not only the dealer or the side ahead. What breaks a tie after five hands is not settled — uncommon, since most hands are worth a single odd point, but possible. Agree at the table whether a tie stands or is settled with one more hand.

Learn the ladder before anything else

Aluette's ranking ignores suit entirely, which trips up every new player at least once. The four top cards — Monsieur, Madame, Le Borgne and La Vache — sit above everything else, the two nines come next, then the two low twos, and only after that does ordinary face value start — aces over kings, kings over cavalières, and down. Check a card's rank before you commit it until the ladder is second nature.

Sit back in the first two seats

With no suit to follow, the biggest edge at the table is simply playing after everyone else has shown their hand. The first two players to a trick are usually better off throwing low and watching: a card saved now can win later, once you know exactly what it needs to beat.

Protect the lead, don't waste it

The third and fourth seats are where tricks are actually won. The third player's job is often to play a card strong enough to stop the fourth winning cheaply; the fourth then decides whether to beat it, spoil it by matching its rank, or give it up on purpose to hand their partner the advantage next time. A spoiled trick costs nobody anything directly, so it is a cheap way to deny an opponent a cheap win.

Watch for mordienne, both ways

Mordienne is a closing run from nothing, worth double, so a player with no tricks after six is still dangerous. Help a partner going for it by spoiling tricks, spreading the early tricks between your opponents, and overtaking or spoiling any trick your partner is in danger of winning in the first five. Against an opponent with nothing yet, keep a card back to take or spoil one of the last tricks — the run has to reach the ninth trick to count.

Weigh a surrender honestly

Offering to surrender only costs you the single point you were likely to lose anyway, so it is worth doing with a genuinely weak hand. Refusing one is a bet on making mordienne: miss it and the surrendering side scores two instead of you scoring one — only refuse when taking the closing run of tricks from nothing feels likely, not merely possible.

Playing without the signals

Aluette is traditionally played with its own gestures and running patter — the upward look for Monsieur, the wink for Le Borgne, whole phrases for "play low to me". Plenty of tables, especially ones learning the game for the first time, drop all of it and play with ordinary table talk instead. None of it touches the sheet either way, and a first game is usually easier without a second language of winks to learn alongside the ranking.

Announced mordienne and a race to ten

One written account lets a side announce mordienne out loud before the first card is led, and says the announcement itself extends the whole match, which no longer ends after five hands but runs until one side reaches ten points. The same writer may instead be describing a game where mordienne only counts if announced and the target is always ten. That is a real change to how a match ends, so it is not the shape this row's default assumes — play the five-hand game unless your table agrees to the longer one.

Settling by surrender

Whether to ever offer a surrender is the table's own call rather than a fixed house style — a side may always offer one, or a table happy to play every hand out can simply never take it up. Agree before the first hand whether surrendering is on.

A quieter table

The traditional game is loud — laughter, commentary, players naming a card's folk nickname as they throw it. None of that is required, and a table that would rather concentrate in silence loses nothing by doing so.

How many cards does Aluette use, and why don't the suits matter?

Forty-eight: a Spanish-suited pack of coins, cups, batons and swords, king down to ace in each. The suits are only there because that is the pack Aluette is traditionally played with — no trick is won by matching a suit, only by the single fixed ranking of all forty-eight cards, Monsieur at the top down to the low threes at the bottom.

How do you win a single hand of Aluette?

By being the individual player who wins the most of the nine tricks. If two or more tie on the same number, whoever reached it first takes it, not whoever got there last. Your partner's tricks do not count towards yours — only your own — though the point itself goes to whichever side you are on.

What is mordienne?

Winning the hand with an unbroken run of tricks at the end, having taken none before it — the run has to last to the ninth trick. It scores two points for your side instead of the usual one; many tables play it, not all. It is also what makes offering or refusing a surrender a real decision rather than a formality, since refusing one is a bet on pulling mordienne off.

How are the two partnerships decided in Aluette?

At the very start, before any hand is dealt for real: any player turns cards face up one at a time until Monsieur, Madame, Le Borgne and La Vache have all appeared, and whoever is dealt one of the four sits down as half of a side with whoever was dealt its partner card. Monsieur and Madame play together against Le Borgne and La Vache for the whole match that follows.

Can you play Aluette without the traditional signals and chatter?

Yes. The gestures, winks and set phrases that go with Aluette are a real part of how it is traditionally played, but they are entirely a table convention — nothing about the cards, the ranking or the scoring depends on them. A table can play in complete silence and it is still a correct game of Aluette.

How long does a match of Aluette take?

A standard match is five hands, each of nine tricks, so a sitting is over before long once the ranking is familiar. Learning the ladder of cards is the slow part for new players; the hands themselves move quickly once everyone knows where a card sits.