OBJECTIVE OF TRUT: The objective of Trut is to win rounds and collect 7 Long points before your opponents.
NUMBER OF PLAYERS: 2 players, or 2 teams of 2 players
NUMBER OF CARDS: Standard 32-card deck
RANK OF CARDS: By decreasing order: 7, 8, Ace, King, Queen, Jack, 10, 9
TYPE OF GAME: Bluff trick game
AUDIENCE: Adult, Teen
HOW TO DEAL TRUT
You will need small objects (tokens, coins or other) to count the points, in two different sizes: Small and Long. Then hand out the cards:
- Cut: the Dealer of the previous round cuts, then passes to his neighbour on the left who becomes Dealer
- Deal: The Dealer deals 3 cards to each player, one at a time.
HOW TO PLAY TRUT
The game is played in successive rounds. A round consists of 3 tricks.
Course of a round
The players must, in turn, starting with the player to the left of the Dealer, place a card on the table, face up.
- Win the trick: When all players have put down their cards, the highest value wins the trick. The player who wins the trick picks up the cards and keeps them face down in front of him/her.
- Raise: The player who won the previous trick plays one of his or her remaining cards.
- Tie: If there is a tie, the trick is “pourri” (spoilt) and no one wins. The player who played the last card raises (also called “qui pourrit dépourrit” which means “who spoils unspoils”)
- If there is again a tie, continue with a new trick.
- If there is still a tie, the round is cancelled.
Winning a round :
- The team with the most tricks wins the round.
- If a team wins the first 2 tricks, there is no need to play the last trick.
- Special case: if there is a tie in the 2nd trick, the team that won the 1st trick wins the round.
Trut
As long as he has one card left in his hand, a player can trut at any moment. A trut is done either verbally by saying “Je trute” or physically (the real way to trut, as the ancients did) by banging one’s fist on the table. Truting means that the player thinks he or she is going to win the round (not necessarily the trick).
The other players have two choices:
- Aller voir: they don’t believe the Truter and want to “go and see” if he is bluffing: the Truter plays and the round goes on
- Se coucher (lying down): they put the cards back in the deck without revealing them, give a Small to the Truter, and a new round begins.
Calculation of points
At the end of a round (of 3 tricks), the points are counted:
- 1 Small for the winner if no team has truted
- 1 Long for the winner if there was a Trut (no matter who truted) and the other team decided to go and see.
Conversion: 3 Small points form a Long point. But as soon as a team gets a Long (by conversion or because a team had truted during the round), all the small points of the opposing team are lost.
HOW TO WIN
The first team to win 7 Longs wins the game.
Important rule: the fortial
When a team has 6 Long and 2 Small, it is about to win, which is called “au fortial“. In this case, at the beginning of the round, only the first player (to the left of the Dealer) has the right to look at his cards and must announce if he truts. If he does not decide to trut, his partner can then look at his cards and decide to trut. Next:
- if one of the two players truts, the opposing team is forced to go and see, otherwise they immediately lose the game. The round is played normally.
- if the team au fortial has not truted, the round is not played, the opposing team wins a Small and a new round begins.
Enjoy! 😊
VARIATIONS
These rules are the French version of the Trut, an old card game that also exists in Spain under the name Truco.
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