How to play Belote

Belote is the card game France plays in its cafés, and Bulgaria, Armenia, the Levant and the Gulf play it too, as blot and belot. Four players sit in two sides, partners opposite, with thirty-two cards. One side takes a trump from a card turned up on the table, and then both sides try to win the points in the tricks.

The side that took the trump has to make at least as many points as the other side. If it does, both sides score what they made. If it does not, it scores nothing and the other side scores everything. The first side to 501 wins the match.

The pack is sevens up to aces in four suits. Each card has two places, one for the trump suit and one for the rest.

In trumps the jack is the best card and worth 20, then the nine worth 14, then the ace, ten, king, queen, eight and seven. In the other suits the ace is best, then the ten, king, queen, jack, nine, eight and seven, and the jack is worth only 2.

The cards add up to 152, and whoever takes the last trick gets 10 more, so every deal is worth 162.

1. The dealer gives three cards to each player and then two more, so everybody holds five.
2. The next card goes face up on the table. Its suit is the first one offered as trump.
3. Players take the trump or pass, in turn from the dealer's left. How that works is the next section.
4. The player who takes picks up the turned card. Then the dealer gives three more to each of the others and two to the taker, so everybody holds eight.

In the first round each player in turn may take the turned card's suit as trump, or pass. The first to take ends the round.

If all four pass, there is a second round, starting again from the dealer's left. This time each may name any other suit as trump, or pass.

If all four pass twice, nobody takes. The cards go back and the next player deals. A hand worth taking has the jack or the nine of the suit, or three trumps and an ace beside them, and the turned card counts as yours if you take.

Some hands score before a trick is taken. Three cards in a row in one suit are 20, four are 50 and five are 100, in the order ace, king, queen, jack, ten, nine, eight, seven. Four of a kind score too: jacks 200, nines 150, and aces, tens, kings or queens 100. A card counts in one declaration only.

Each player says what they hold as they play to the first trick. Only the side with the single best declaration scores, and it scores all of its declarations. Four of a kind beats any run, a longer run beats a shorter one, then the higher top card, then a run in trumps. The app works all of this out for you and shows the winning side's cards when the first trick is taken.

The king and queen of trumps in one hand are belote and rebelote, worth 20 to that side whatever else happens. You say belote as you play the first of them and rebelote with the second.