Bezique

Bezique is a two-player trick-taking and melding game from 19th-century France, a cousin of Pinochle. A hand is free play while a stock lasts, then a strict play-off. The first player to 1,000 points wins. A longer match, to 1,500, can be chosen before the first hand.

Bezique uses a 64-card pack: two 32-card Piquet decks shuffled together. That is two copies of every card from 7 through Ace in all four suits. Twos, threes, fours, fives, and sixes are not used.

When two identical cards are played to the same trick, the one played first wins.

High to low:

The 10 ranks just below the Ace, above the King.

The deal alternates. The first dealer of a match alternates between games. Cards are dealt in packets of 3, then 2, then 3, to the non-dealer first, so each player holds 8 cards.

The next card is turned face up. Its suit is trump for the hand, and it sits under the remaining 47 cards, which form the stock.

If that turned card is a 7, the dealer immediately scores 10, and that seven has already been used.

The non-dealer leads the first trick. After that, the winner of a trick leads to the next.

Until the stock is down to its last face-down card, trick-taking is relaxed:

After each trick, in order:

Melded cards stay face up until you play them. They are still part of your hand: you can play them to later tricks, and you can combine them with new cards to form a different meld.

Only the winner of a trick may meld, and only once for that trick. Points:

A card that has already scored a meld can score again in a different meld. A royal marriage may later become part of a sequence, and both the marriage and the sequence count. A Queen of Spades from a marriage may later make a bezique with a Jack of Diamonds.

The same card cannot score the same kind of meld twice. After a marriage, that Queen cannot marry the other King of her suit. The exception is bezique: a single bezique may later be built into a double bezique, for 40 and then 500.

Declaring the sequence also closes its King and Queen as a marriage. If you score the sequence before the marriage, you do not get the marriage afterwards for those same cards. Score the marriage first when you want both.

Four of a kind is any four cards of that rank. The suits need not all be different, and they need not be one of each suit.

On a trick you have won, a seven of trumps that has not yet scored is worth 10:

Each physical seven scores at most once. Exchanging or showing a seven does not spend the trick's other meld: you may do both on the same trick.

When one face-down card remains in the stock, the winner of the trick draws it, and the loser takes the face-up trump. That winner scores 10 for the last trick of the stock.

Both players then pick up every meld still on the table. No more melds may be declared. A meld you saved and never declared is lost.

The last eight tricks are strict:

When the hands are empty, each player scores the brisques in the tricks they won over the whole hand. Every Ace and every 10 is worth 10. Kings do not count. The sixteen brisques are 160 points, divided between the two players. The 10 for closing the stock is scored when it happens, not again at the end.

Those trick points are added to the hand's meld points, and the total is added to the match score.

The first player to reach the target wins. If both cross it on the same hand, the higher score wins. An exact tie plays another hand. The target is 1,000, or 1,500 if that was chosen before the match.

In the free phase, do not spend an Ace or a 10 on a trick you cannot win. Throw a low card instead.

Double bezique is 500 points and clogs half your hand. Chase it when spades or diamonds are trumps, or when three of the four cards arrive early. If the other player has already buried a Queen of Spades or a Jack of Diamonds, let it go.

A marriage that can grow into a sequence is worth declaring early, so later tricks can score the sequence as well. Waiting too long loses the meld when the stock ends.

Near the end of the stock, lead high trumps and Aces if you think the other player is still holding a meld. In the last part of the stock, play exposed Queens and Jacks that have already scored, and keep hidden Aces, tens, and high trumps for the play-off.