Players

Coinche, or Belote Coinchée is a variant of the game of Belote.
It is played by four players with a deck on 32 cards.

The four players are seperated into two teams of North/South and East/West.

The value of the cards

The value of the cards changes depending on whether it is the trump or not.

A trump is always stronger than a non-trump. For example: an 8 of trumps (value: 0 points) is strong than an Ace of non-trumps (value: 11 points).

The deal

For the first game, the dealer is chosen at random and deals eight cards per players by dealing in three turns.

The cards are never shuffled between deals except after 4 deals without a take, the program shuffles them automatically.

The bidding

The players speak on their turn starting with the player to the right of the dealer. Each player can:

• pass on their turn, being able to bid on the next turn if a bid was made in the meantime.
• make a bid by declaring the number of points that they hope to achieve in the trump suit of their choice. The bid must be at least 80 points or higher than the previous bid in a multiple of 10.
• counter the opponent's preceeding bid if they think that they will not complete their contract: the points will then be doubled. The opponent can then recounter, which will have the effect of quadupling the points.

Capot: you can ask for Capot by choosing the suit. You then commit to making all the tricks. The amount of the contract is 250 points but no other player can outbid a capot.

The end of the bidding: each player must speak at least once, and the bidding ends after three consecutive passes. A player is therefore unable to outbid themselves if all the players have passed.

Declarations

Once the trump suit is chosen, it is then the first round where each player can announce their declarations. During the second turn the strongest declarationswill be revealed to all the players in order to be checked.

A card can only count for for declaration apart from Belote or Rebelote.
The Carré
The value of a Carré depends on its strength:

Carrés of 7s and 8s are worth nothing. A carré of 100 points is stronger than a Cent.

• The Cent is worth 100 points.
• The Cinquante is worth 50 points
• The Tierce is worth 20 points

Gameplay

After the bidding round, the team who has made the highest bid will then go try to complete their contract. The player to the right of the dealer plays a card of his choice, the colour of this card becoming the required suit.

The other players each play the required suit on their turn.
If the player has no card of the required suit, two possibilites exist:

• their partner is the leader (strongest card on the table), so he may play any card (discard) or cut
• his partner is not the leader or has not yet played: the player must cut if he has a trump, otherwise he discards by playing any card.

Should a player play the trump, the others must play a trump of greater value than the one present on the table. If this proves to be impossible, he must choise a lower trump. If an opponent cuts, it is not necessary to cut if you are unable to outplay their trump: you may then discard.

The openening card of the next trick is played by the player who won the last trick. When all the cards have been played, you proceed to the counting of the points.

Calculating the points

Each team adds up the value of the cards won.
A bonus of 10 points is added to the team who won the final trick.
If a player has the King and Queen of trumps, he gains 20 additional points, known as Belote and Rebelote.

If the team who won the bidding has:

• more than the number of expected points, each of the two teams marks up the points according to the sum of the value of the cards plus the bid of the taking team.
• less than the number of expected points, they mark up no points unless they had a Belote or Rebelote. The defenders mark up 160 points plus the bid of the opposing team.

Variations

The game of Belote Contréé is known as "coinche" when it is played with declarations. In Coinche, to achieve the contract you must not only attain the number of points bid, but also have more points than your opponent.