Barbu

Players and equipment

Four players and a standard 52-card pack, ranked A K Q J 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 high to low in each suit. Nobody partners anybody — everyone plays for themselves, hand after hand — though the doubling rule below turns any two players into something close to a private bet.

The deal

One player is declarer at random to begin, and stays declarer for seven hands running, choosing a different one of the seven contracts each time until all seven are done. Then the player to the left of that very first declarer takes over for their own seven, and so on until all four have had their turn — twenty-eight hands end the match. The player on declarer's right deals each hand, and the player sitting opposite declarer cuts. Being declarer is a seven-hand run, not a deal-by-deal turn, so the same player chooses the contract for all seven of their hands before the role moves on.

Play

Declarer names which contract this hand plays, and in two of them a further choice — Trumps needs a trump suit, Dominoes needs a starting rank. Every other player then gets one chance, in turn starting on declarer's left, to double; see Scoring for what a double does.

Five of the seven contracts are played with no trumps. Declarer leads to the first trick; everybody must follow suit if they can, and a player holding none of the suit led may throw away any card. Whoever wins a trick leads the next one. No Hearts and No King of Hearts carry one extra rule: you may not lead a heart at all unless your whole hand is hearts. In No Queens the hand stops at the end of the trick that brings down the fourth queen.

The sixth contract, Trumps, is an ordinary trick-taking hand with a trump suit named by declarer, and you must follow suit if you can. When trumps are led, you must play a higher trump than any already in the trick if you hold one. When you cannot follow a side suit, you must trump, and overtrump any trump already played, if you hold a trump high enough; if you cannot beat the trick, you may play anything.

The seventh, Dominoes (also called Fantan), has no tricks at all. Declarer names a starting rank — "dominoes from the five" — and everyone in turn, starting with declarer, plays a card face up if they can: a card of the named rank, or a card next in sequence in the same suit to one already down. Declarer may hold none of the chosen rank and simply pass first; anyone else with nothing playable says so and the turn moves on. Each suit builds outward from its starting rank in both directions until all fifty-two cards are down.

Scoring

Each contract pays out its own fixed scale of points, won or lost by whoever takes the cards, tricks or finishing place it names:

No Tricks

−2

each trick you win

No Queens

−6

each queen you take

No Last Two

−10

the second-last trick

No Last Two

−20

the very last trick

No Hearts

−2

each heart you take, bar the ace

No Hearts

−6

the ace of hearts

No King of Hearts

−20

the king of hearts

Trumps

+5

each trick you win

Dominoes

+45

first player out

Dominoes

+20

second player out

Dominoes

+5

third player out

Dominoes

−5

last player out

Before a card is played, every player but declarer — in turn, starting on declarer's left — gets one chance to double any, all or none of the rest of the table; declarer may only double back someone who doubled them first. In Trumps and Dominoes the others may double declarer only, never each other. A double is a private bet between the two of you about who does better on that hand: if only one of a pair doubled the other, the gap between their two raw scores moves from whoever did worse to whoever did better; if they doubled each other, that gap moves twice. "Redouble" is the traditional word for doubling someone who already doubled you, and "maximum" for doubling everyone at once. During each declarer's run of seven hands, every other player must double that declarer at least twice; the sheet does not check this for you.

A round on the sheet is one hand. SquareScores deals nothing and sees none of this — the four of you settle the hand on paper first, pair by pair, exactly as above, before anyone opens a phone. The score table only takes whole numbers from zero up, so what gets typed in is measured from the bottom of the hand: find whoever has the lowest net result for the hand after the doubles, and every player enters how many points they finished above that player, so the lowest enters 0. Every hand lifts all four players by the same amount, so the running totals keep exactly the true gaps and the true order between players and nothing is ever carried. The totals will not add up to zero, and they are not meant to. Twenty-eight hands end the match, and End match — any player's to tap — banks whoever's running total is then highest.

A worked hand

Anne declares No Queens. Beth doubles everyone (a "maximum"). Cath doubles Anne only. Diana passes. Anne redoubles Cath.

Diana takes two queens; Anne and Cath take one each; Beth takes none.

Anne's queens

−6

1 taken

Beth's queens

0

0 taken

Cath's queens

−6

1 taken

Diana's queens

−12

2 taken

Now the doubles, pair by pair. Where nobody doubled, nothing changes hands and the pair is left out below.

Anne and Beth

6

Beth's double; Anne did worse

Anne and Cath

0

doubled each other; level at −6

Beth and Cath

6

Beth's double; Cath did worse

Beth and Diana

12

Beth's double; Diana did worse

Each figure moves from whoever did worse in that pair to whoever did better. Anne and Diana never doubled each other, and nor did Cath and Diana, so those two pairs settle nothing.

Anne

−12

−6, then pays Beth 6

Beth

+24

0, then is paid 6 + 6 + 12

Cath

−12

−6, then pays Beth 6

Diana

−24

−12, then pays Beth 12

Check it against the hand's own total: four queens at −6 each is −24, and −12 + 24 − 12 − 24 is −24 too.

Diana's −24 is the lowest result this hand, so on the phone everyone enters how far they finished above it: Anne 12, Beth 48, Cath 12, Diana 0. Nobody carries anything forward.

Ending

Twenty-eight hands — seven contracts for each of the four players as declarer — end the match. Any player may tap End match once the last hand's doubles are settled; there is no button for the next hand, because the next one opens itself the moment this one is scored. Whoever's running total is highest when the last hand lands has won. Two players level at the top is a tie, and nothing plays it off.

Long hearts favour No Hearts and No King of Hearts

Both contracts forbid leading a heart unless your whole hand is hearts, and a hand long in hearts is short in the other suits, so you will run out of those suits early and get chances to throw your hearts away on other players' tricks.

Save No Tricks for a weak hand, and for last

No Tricks totals only 26 across the whole hand and the tricks tend to scatter round the table rather than pile onto one player, which makes it the gentlest contract to be stuck with on a poor hand. Keep it back for your seventh and last, when you may have nothing better to bid.

A trump-heavy hand wants Trumps, played late

You are guaranteed at least four trumps once you have named the suit, so hold Trumps for your last hand of seven, when you can be sure of a hand that suits it. A long, strong trump holding can force out the cards above it before the rest of the table is ready for them.

Clear your compulsory doubles early

During each declarer's run of seven hands you must double that declarer at least twice, and leaving both for the run's last hand or two is a bad spot to be caught in — you may end up forced to double a strong contract, or worse, one of the positive ones, purely to meet the quota. Spend them on hands that cost little if you turn out to be wrong.

Bid for the double, not just the hand

A hand that wins whatever you bid is worth more if somebody doubles it, so choose the contract most likely to tempt a double rather than the one that merely feels safest. A hand that is comfortable at No Last Two but screams No Hearts at an opponent who holds a pile of them is worth more bid as No Hearts.

The dealer chooses, not the declarer

Some tables hand the choice of contract to whoever is dealing that hand rather than to the seven-hand declarer; the first lead still falls to the player on the dealer's left, except in Dominoes, which the dealer opens. It flattens the seven-hands-in-a-row structure into a simpler rotation, at the cost of nobody getting a full run of seven choices to plan around.

No doubles, no play

If a negative contract draws no doubles at all, some tables skip playing it out: each of the other three scores a third of the contract's total, rounded, and declarer takes the rounding — 0 or +1. It saves time on a contract nobody thought worth a bet.

Barbu without the heart-lead ban

Some tables drop the rule forbidding a heart lead in No King of Hearts, which sharpens the contract considerably — there is no longer a safe way to unload a heart you are stuck with by waiting for someone else to lead the suit first.

Playing for chips instead of a sheet

Tables that find the running sheet heavy going score with poker chips instead: a coloured chip stands for a double, and the raw hand result and the doubles settle by handing chips across the table rather than writing a total down. The arithmetic underneath is identical; only the ledger changes.

Barbu for three

Contributed versions for three players exist, changing the deal and the set of hands played rather than simply dropping a seat. This brief covers the standard four-player game; a table wanting a different count should look for that version's own rules rather than guessing at this one.

How many contracts does Barbu have?

Seven: five where you try to avoid certain tricks or cards (No Tricks, No Queens, No Last Two, No Hearts, No King of Hearts) and two where you try to win them (Trumps and Dominoes). Everybody plays all seven once before the declarer's turn passes on, so a full round for four players is twenty-eight hands.

What does "barbu" mean, and why is a contract named after it?

French for "bearded". Some old packs draw the king of hearts with a beard, and No King of Hearts is often nicknamed "barbu" after him — which is also where the whole game takes its name.

Can Barbu be played with three or five players?

There are contributed versions for three players, but they change the deal and the set of hands played rather than simply adjusting the seats — and no five-player version is documented at all. This brief covers the standard four-player game; a table wanting a different count should look for that version's own rules rather than guessing at this one.

What happens if nobody doubles a hand?

The hand is still played out exactly as declared, and nobody owes anybody anything extra for it — doubling is optional on any one hand, though every player must double each declarer at least twice during that declarer's run of seven. Some tables skip playing an undoubled negative contract instead; see Variations.

How does doubling change the score?

A double is a side bet between two players on who does better on that one hand. If only one of the pair doubled the other, the gap between their two raw scores moves from the loser of that pair to the winner; if they doubled each other, the gap moves twice. Work it out pair by pair before anyone touches the app — see the worked hand under Scoring.

Why do Dominoes' points add up so strangely?

45, 20, 5 and −5 for first, second, third and last out looks odd on its own, but it totals 65 — exactly matching Trumps — so that the seven contracts' totals cancel out to zero across a full set of seven hands. The numbers are chosen for that, not for being round.