How to Play Belote: Rules, Scoring and a Worked Example

Four players form two teams, with partners sitting opposite each other. The pack has 32 cards: 7, 8, 9, 10, jack, queen, king and ace in each suit. What a card is worth depends on a single question, whether it is a trump:

The rows run in trump order, strongest first: jack, 9, ace, 10, king, queen, 8, 7. In the other suits the order is ace, 10, king, queen, jack, 9, 8, 7, so the jack drops from the top of the trump suit to a 2-point nobody in the middle of the others. Add up the columns and the trump suit holds 62 points and each other suit 30: 152 in the cards, plus 10 for the last trick, makes 162 in every hand.

The dealer gives each player 3 cards, then 2 more, so everyone starts with 5. The next card is turned face up in the middle of the table, and the other 11 wait face down to complete the deal later.

Tradition adds two surprises. Pagat notes that the pack is never shuffled at Belote, only cut before the deal, and that the deal and the play go anticlockwise, although many people play clockwise. The tables on this site shuffle a fresh pack for every hand, and the player beside the dealer is always the first to speak and the first to lead.

There is no auction of points in Belote. The turned-up card asks every player the same yes-or-no question, at most twice:

1. Round one: starting beside the dealer and ending with the dealer, each player either takes, accepting the suit of the turned-up card as trump, or passes.
2. If all four pass, round two starts in the same order: each player may take by naming one of the other three suits as trump, or pass.
3. If everyone passes again, the cards are thrown in, nobody scores and the next player deals.
4. As soon as someone takes, the asking stops. The taker picks up the turned-up card and gets 2 more cards; everyone else gets 3, so all four hold 8.

Taking commits your partner too: from that moment your team needs at least as many points as the other team by the end of the hand. A hopeful take on a weak hand is the quickest way to give away 162 points.

The player beside the dealer leads to the first trick, whoever took, and the winner of each trick leads to the next. What you may play is strictly set:

• Follow the suit led if you can.
• When trumps are led, you must play a higher trump than any already in the trick, if you hold one.
• If you cannot follow suit, you must play a trump: higher than any trump already played if you can, and a lower one if you cannot.
• The one exception: when your partner is winning the trick, you may play any card. If you choose to trump anyway, you must still go above the trump in the trick when you can.
• The trick goes to the highest trump in it or, if it holds no trump, to the highest card of the suit led.

The third rule catches out players who know other games: even a trump that cannot win must be played, a bit like being made to tip the waiter who just spilled soup on you. Pagat sums the whole thing up in one line: always follow suit, and if you cannot, trump unless your partner is winning the trick.

Some combinations in your 8 cards score extra. A sequence is 3 or more cards in a row in one suit, in the order 7, 8, 9, 10, jack, queen, king, ace. Four of a kind counts for jacks, nines, aces, tens, kings and queens:

A card can count in only one declaration, and four eights or four sevens score nothing. Only one team scores declarations: the one holding the single best. Any four of a kind beats any sequence; between two sequences the one worth more wins, then the one with the higher top card, then the one in trumps, and if they are still level, the one held by the player who plays first in the hand. That team scores every declaration it holds, and the other team none.

Traditionally each player announces declarations while playing to the first trick. Here you do not have to spot them at all: the table finds every player’s declarations and, once the first trick is in, shows the ones that score.

The king and queen of trumps in the same hand are worth 20 points. You say “Belote” as you play the first of them and “Rebelote” as you play the second; at these tables it is called for you.

Belote-Rebelote is never compared with the other declarations. It always scores for the team that holds it, whether or not the other team has the best declaration, and even if its own team took and went down. The pair may even have named the game: Wikipedia says the word belote refers to this king and queen and may be where the game’s name comes from.

When the 8 tricks are done, each team adds up the card points in its tricks, 10 for the last trick (the dix de der), its declarations if it scored them and Belote-Rebelote if it held it. Then the contract is judged:

• Made: the takers have at least as many points as the defenders, so a tie counts as made. Both teams score what they took.
• Dedans, or down: the takers have fewer points. The defenders score 162 plus all the declarations and their own Belote-Rebelote; the takers score only their Belote-Rebelote, if they held it.
• Capot: a team that takes all 8 tricks scores 252 instead of its card points, because the last trick is worth 100 instead of 10, plus its declarations. The team without a trick keeps only its Belote-Rebelote, and if the takers were left without a trick, their declarations go to the other team as well.

Every point is kept as it is, with no rounding. The first team to reach 1000 at the end of a hand wins, and if both teams pass 1000 on the same hand, the game is a draw.

You and your partner play against two opponents. The 7♥ is turned up and you hold J♥, 9♥, A♣, K♣ and 10♠. With the two best trumps in your hand you take: hearts are trump, you pick up the 7♥ and get 2 more cards, the Q♣ and the 8♦.

Your Q♣, K♣ and A♣ now make a sequence of 3, worth 20, and nobody holds anything better, so it scores. The opponent on your left has the K♥ and Q♥: Belote-Rebelote, 20 points for the other team whatever happens.

Say your team takes 92 card points, the last trick included, and the opponents 70. You count 92 + 20 = 112, they count 70 + 20 = 90, so you made it: 112 for you, 90 for them.

If instead you had taken 72 and they 90, the count would be 72 + 20 = 92 against 90 + 20 = 110. That is dedans: they score 162 + 20 + 20 = 202, and you score 0. Had your team taken all 8 tricks, you would score 252 + 20 = 272, and they would keep only their 20.

The jack of trumps cannot be beaten, and the nine loses only to the jack; together they are worth 34 points. The bots at these tables never take without at least 3 trumps, counting the turned-up card, that include the jack or the nine, and that is a sensible floor for people too.

Round two is a second chance: you may name any suit except the one turned up, which helps when the turned-up card is no use to you but another suit holds your jack and nine. As a defender, remember that a tie goes to the takers. Every ace or ten you drop on a trick your partner is winning moves those points to your side of the count.

Wikipedia calls Belote the national card game of France. It appeared there around 1900, its definitive rules were first published in French in 1921, and it is a close relative of Klaberjass, also called Bela, and of the Dutch Klaverjas, games of the Jass family in which the jack and nine of trumps rule as well. Bulgaria has its own member of the family, Bulgarian Belot, which this site also plays. The two share the 32 cards, the card values, the declarations and the 20 for Belote, but they part ways here:

• The contract: Belote takes its trump from a turned-up card, yes or no, in two rounds. Bulgarian Belot holds an auction with suit contracts, No Trump and All Trump, and a contract can be doubled with contre and redoubled with recontre.
• The deal: in Belote the last cards arrive only after someone takes, and the taker gets the turned-up card. In Bulgarian Belot every player gets 3 cards, then 2, then 3 more.
• Trumping: in Belote you must trump when you cannot follow suit and an opponent is winning, even with a trump too low to win. The Bulgarian rules on this site let you play another card when you cannot beat an opponent’s trump.
• The score: Belote keeps every point and plays to 1000. Bulgarian Belot on this site records scores in tens and plays to 151.

If you learned Belot in Bulgaria, the card values and declarations will feel like home. What takes getting used to is a hand with no auction at all, where a single card on the table decides the trump.