Primer on 3P French Tarot by a BGA user.
The bids:
As you play, you will get some experience on what bids can make each hand. Note that each bout is worth 10 points, and the plurality of bouts is worth 5 points on top of that. In most cases, you will need two or more bouts to make a contract.
Small: There are two purposes to this bid. The first purpose is to allow other players to bid Guard over you. Hence, it is rarely correct to bid Small on last position. If that does not happen, then likely there will be a bout in the kitty. Thus, you should bid this if your hand is a bout away from making. The second purpose is to end the match when you are ahead.
Guard: This is your standard bid. This bid is usually final.
Guard Sans: This is a bid that scores points, but requires a much better hand. However, how much better depends on your holding. Allow me to give some examples.
Imagine you are holding:
1 3 4 8 V C D
3 6 7 8 C R
6 R
5 V
5 8 11 17 18 21 *
In this scenario, you are holding on to a two-suited hand. In this case, trumps are at a premium, and the extra trumps in the kitty may make the difference between your suits running at the end, and the opponent's suit running. Therefore, the cost to not having the kitty is high.
1 7 D R
5 10 V C D
7 D R
1 6 V C R
1 4 5 12 13 17 *
With this holding, you have a balanced hand, and good prospects defensively with each suit. In this situation, you need to worry little about suits running, but your trumps are few and weak. It will be difficult to protect the Petit. With extra trumps in the kitty and a voided suit the Petit would be much safer. Again, the cost to not having the kitty is high.
1 5 8 V R
4 5 7 C R
1 3 7 V C R
(void)
1 5 13 15 16 19 20 21
With a holding like this, you already have a void in one suit, and the kitty voiding another has fairly low benefit. In addition, the Petit is unlikely to switch sides. Compared to the above examples, the cost to not having the kitty is low.
Guard Contre: If your hand is amazingly good, you may bid this, but I have never done so myself. If there are 10 points in the kitty, than 25x6 is not much more than 35x4 (especially since either is match-winning), and the risk is far too high.
Declarer play:
Your most obvious obstacle is that you are playing against two players. This means that one opponent may win the trick, and the other may add points. To counteract this, your goal is to make opponent's waste their winners on each other. Usually, this means leading out a long suit, therefore forcing both opponents to waste trumps, which also add few points.
Another good thing to obtain is a void. Without a void, the R can escape, while the void gives you good chances to capturing it.
Some opening lead examples:
4 6 10 V C R
Lead the R, then the V. If the D takes it, continue with the C, then the 10. Otherwise, continue the 10.
1 4 7 9 C D R
There are three possible tricks, and you are entitled to all three of them. Lead the R, then the D, then the C. Do not hesitate if the V drops early - the defender may be playing deceptively.
1 3 5 6 7 10 V
There are three possible tricks, and you are entitled to none of them. Lead the 1. If you are fortunate, two face cards will drop, and you will continue the 10.
1
Sometimes you are unable to fully void two suits. In this case, you may consider leading the singleton as a deceptive play. Opponents may hold their face cards thinking this is a long suit.
When to lead trumps:
The main reason to lead trumps is to hunt the petit. If this is not the case, consider not leading trumps. Example, its the middle of the game, and you are holding:
1 3 4 5 7 10 V (diamonds has not been led)
8 10 11 15 18 19 20 21 (petit already played, 5 trumps remaining)
All your trumps are likely high. However, it is not recommended to draw trumps. This is because your diamonds still has losers. If you lead trumps, then the opponent may discard points to your diamond. Instead, lead diamonds to force opponents to ruff their partner's diamond winners, and draw trumps only when your diamonds are good. When all your remaining cards all winners, the points will fall to you.
Hunting the Petit
Imagine you are holding
3 5 7 12 13 16 17 18 20 21 *
This is a lot of trumps, and high ones, so you have a good chance to make the Petit fall. However:
If you lead the 20 and 21, the Petit will likely remain, and be secured on the 19.
If you lead the 16, and the 1 and 19 belong to different players, the Petit will escape.
The 18 is a slightly better play - if the player right after you has the Petit, they may hold it thinking you have 18-19-20-21. However, if they have 4 or fewer trumps, they will be forced to try their chances, and succeed.
I would lead the 12 here. With some luck, 15 and 19 will drop, then you will be able to lead 5 high trumps.
Defender Play
Each of the defenders has a role.
The defender after the declarer should attempt to lead declarer's void. This way, declarer is not gifted any finesses.
The defender before declarer on the other hand should either lead a long suit to obtain trump promotions, or set up finesses. Trump leads may occasionally be useful.
Neither player should lead declarer's suit!
Generally, your opening lead should be your longest suit, both to avoid this, also also to communicate to partner what your longest suit is.
Example opening leads from defender after declarer:
1 4 7 10 V C D R
This is a great opening lead, as your suit is long, and no finesses are possible. If your trumps are long, then your R is unlikely to escape. Thus, you should lead it for the small chance declarer is singleton. If your trumps are short, you may lead a lower card so that R can be discarded on partner.
1 4 6 7 10 V D
This is also an okay opening lead. Declarer is likely to be void or hold a singleton R. Lead the 10. (However, this is worse than the above example, as you may be punished if Declarer wins the C.)
1 5 7 9 V R
Lead the R. Worst case scenario, Declarer runs the D and C. However, should you find a void, you will have safe leads for a while.
1 5 6 7 8 9
This is not great. While your hand needs no protection, your partner's hand likely does. Still, this may be your best option.
7
A lead from short means you want to ruff. You should want to ruff if:
- Your petit wants to escape quickly
- Your trumps are short, so you want to run out of trumps while declarer is playing their long suit.
2 5 8 9 11 14 17 18 19 20
A trump lead indicates an intention to hunt the petit. If you have no intention to hunt the petit, do not lead trumps, even if your other options are poor.
You should have an intention to hunt the petit based on the following criteria:
- Your trumps are long
- You have a good sequence (like 17-18-19-20 above)
- Your suits are balanced with good defensive tricks. (In this case, the cost to hunting the petit of putting declarer on lead is much smaller.)
When either defender announces the intent to hunt, the other defender should continue playing trumps, unless:
- Their trumps are very short and suits are unbalanced. (The hunt is likely unsuccessful, and unbalanced suits would make it also make a failed hunt very costly.)
- They have the petit themselves.
Before the declarer:
As you can see, most leads from your partner are poor. Usually, your main job is to help find a void to avoid this scenario.Opening leads:
1 4 8 10 V R
You may consider playing 10 here to scare declarer, or play R to reassure partner, depending on who you think has the D.
1 3 5 7 8 10 V C D R
Declarer is almost certainly void. Play the 10 here. Face cards are much more likely to escape, as partner has the ability to overruff.
1 2 4 5 9 10
This is a great suit to lead from. Play the 9. This way, if declarer ducks, partner can duck and you can return.
Uppercutting: When playing a trump before declarer, generally you should uppercut. That is, play your highest trump. This forces the declarer to beat it, potentially promoting partner's trumps. Uppercutting is usually correct.
When NOT to uppercut:
- When leading trumps! Unless you are confident partner has no high trumps, it is second defender's responsibility to play high.
- If you think your hand needs protection more than your partner: Eg, if you think partner has few trumps, when holding 10 11 12 13 19, your 19 is protecting your other trumps. If you attempt to uppercut declarer, they may be able to simply draw out all your trumps.
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How To Win French Tarot In the game for each inning, the taker tricks and the defensive team tricks must be counted individually. And you have to get the total must be 91 points.
To count the cards, attach a low card with a dressed card.
The value of the cards is:
3 Bouts are having worth of 5 points each A King is worth 5 points A Queen is worth of 4 points A Knight is worth of 3 points A Jack is worth 2 points The low cards and all remaining cardsin pairs are having the worth of 1 point.
To win, the taker should reach a different score which is depending on the number of Oudlers you have:
No Bout: 56 points 1 Bout: 51 points 2 Bouts: 41 points 3 Bouts: 36 points Once the taker’s bet is successful, the player can take 25 points plus the difference in points comes between the score and the score they have to reach.
The Example
The taker in the game can take a Garde and score 51 points with having 1 Bout. They are getting a total is 55 points. The result is 29 points, such as 25 points + 4 points. Having taken a Garde total is multiplied by 2 with giving 58 points.
Result: each player of the opponent team has lost 58 points given to the taker that is 174 points.
If the taker has scored 45 points, they lose 6 points with a 31 points result in 25 points + 6 points. Otherwise, the result is multiplied by two, and the taker is losing 186 points and giving 62 points to each of the opponents.
Therefore, at the end of the inning, the total score of all players must be equal to zero.
Special Moves Of French Tarot The Small One At The End The player who keeps the Small One until the last round can win the last trick with ten more points and multiply according to the chosen bid.
The Grand Slam To get the Grand Slam, you have to win every trick. This are must be announced by the taker once after they are looked at the dog. At this point, the taker has to start the inning and have the Excuse play it in the last round and keep it.
The Grand Slam grants bonus points:
Plus 400 points if taker announces and realizes it Plus 200 points if the taker does not announce it but realizes it. Minus 200 points if the taker announces but does not realize it. Gaming Tactics Foremost each of the players are needed to evaluate the strength of your hand of cards, including the number and strength of trumps, dressed cards, number of Bouts before announcing.
The taker can use the six cards, and they put them aside to make precise cuts.
A clear cut is measured when you have no card. Then it is allowing you to cut trumps and start to steal the dressed cards of suit from your opponents. A singleton you can get when you have only one card of a given suit. The players who are having not played their dressed cards at the first trick of the suit can get confident that they are you to get more cards of that suit and make you fall to the trap! The course of a Tarot inning is a race which is used to keep saving your valuable cards when getting the opponent team dressed cards. You can play the suits that force the opponents to cut at trumps to exhaust their trumps, but those forces your teammates to get their dressed cards.
Chasing The Small One If a player has enough high-value trump cards, they have to try to chase the Small One by using the opening tricks with trumps. Then it is forcing the player to follow the trumps.
The player who is having the Small One can be forced to get it. Suppose, if you do not have enough high-value trumps means, the player can play a higher trump, and you are allowing the teammate to play the Small One.
A classical move is helping to play the 21 of trump when a teammate owns the Small One, and it allows the team to save it.
Source: Casino With Bonus (casinowithbonus.com) author unknown.
