How to Play Piquet
Description
A two-player game from the French Renaissance with layered declarations, a scoring sequence before a card is played, and no trumps — just 32 cards and the discipline to use them well.
Objective
Score more points than your opponent across six deals, through card combinations and winning tricks.
Setup
Two players, using a 32-card deck — only 7s through Aces.
Each player gets twelve cards. The remaining eight form a talon.
Rules
Before any tricks are played, each player can exchange cards from their hand for fresh ones from the talon, hoping to improve their combinations.
Then declare your best combinations: the most cards of one suit, the longest run of consecutive cards in one suit, and the strongest set of three or four matching cards — each scores points if it beats what your opponent can show.
Trick-taking follows: no trump suit, just follow suit if you can. Highest card of the suit led wins the trick and leads the next one.
You score a point every time you lead a trick, and another point every time you win a trick your opponent led — plus one more for winning the very last trick.
Winning
Add up declaration points and trick points each deal, and carry your total forward.
After six deals, whoever has more points wins the match — falling short of 100 total points is a notably bad result, known as being "rubiconed."