French Tarot scoring rules
In French Tarot, one player — the taker — plays alone against everyone else, and the whole score hinges on whether they reach a point target. The target is not fixed: it depends on how many bouts they end up holding.
The bouts are the three most valuable cards: the 1 of trumps (the petit), the 21 of trumps, and the Excuse.
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The target depends on the bouts
The taker counts the card points in their tricks and compares them with a threshold set by their bouts.
- No bout: 56 points needed.
- One bout: 51 points.
- Two bouts: 41 points.
- Three bouts: 36 points.
The four contracts
Before play, the taker announces how ambitious they are. The announcement multiplies the whole result, so a Garde Contre turns a modest margin into a large swing.
- Petite: multiplier ×1.
- Garde: ×2.
- Garde Sans (without the dog): ×4.
- Garde Contre (against the dog): ×6, played as ×8 at some tables.
Working out the score
Start from 25 points, add the margin by which the taker beat or missed the target, then multiply by the contract. Each defender pays or receives that amount; the taker takes the opposite side of all of it, which is why a big contract is worth so much at four or five players.
Two extras sit on top. Petit au bout — winning the last trick with the petit — is worth 10 points before multiplication. A poignée, declared when you hold a run of trumps, adds a flat bonus: 20 points for a simple, 30 for a double, 40 for a triple, which at four players means 10, 13 or 15 trumps.
Frequently asked questions
It depends on the bouts in their tricks: 56 with none, 51 with one, 41 with two, 36 with all three. The more bouts, the lower the bar.
The petit (the 1 of trumps), the 21 of trumps, and the Excuse. They are worth 4.5 card points each and they set the taker's target, which makes them the most consequential cards in the deck.
20 points for a simple poignée, 30 for a double, 40 for a triple. At four players that is 10, 13 and 15 trumps respectively; the thresholds shift with the number of players. The bonus is flat and is not multiplied by the contract.
Winning the very last trick with the petit. It is worth 10 points, added before the contract multiplier, and it goes to whichever side won that trick — so it can rescue a failed contract or finish off a successful one.