On the Ancient Play of Piquet
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Som will say that plaies at cardes are not noble, that they are games
for the low and uncultured: yet I have seen grete Nobles and Kyngs
playing at Cardes with eche other. All the myghty houses, from the
Court of Englande to those of Venis and Florence play at cardes at
all times. So I do believe that cardes are indeed a game for Noble as
well as Common, and I begin with the Game of Piquet.

Piquet was the first of all true card games, and from it we get the
sute of Pique -- the Spade, in the Englysh tongue. It was invented by
the great Lahire, one of the noblest knyghts of France, who also
crafted the sutes that we play with today: and it is known to have
been plaied among the noble and high of France for centuries past.

Piquet is plaied with a shortened deck; cast off the deuces, treys,
fours, and fives, so that only the sixes and greter are left, making
six and thirty cardes in your deck. It is plaied in Sets of manie
Hands: and a Set is plaied to 100 points, and is won at the moment
a plaier passes the Set, not finishing the Hand.

It is plaied by two gamesters: and you should choose one who will
begin as Dealer and the other, who shall be Elder: and the Dealer
should shuffle the deck, and the Elder should cut it.

The Dealer will give twelve cardes to eche plaier: hee may deal in
sets of two, three or four cardes at a time, as hee chooses: and the
twelve cardes left at the end are the Stock, and are left hidden on
the table in between. If either plaier is Blank, hee says so, and
shews his hand, and scores Ten for it: and you are Blank if you have
no court cards in your hand at all: yet if both plaiers are Blank,
it is a tie, and neither scores anything.

Elder now draws from the Stock: hee may draw as manie as hee will,
up to eight, first discarding as many as hee will draw: and if hee
takes fewer than eight, hee may examine the remainder up to eight,
not changing their order: as, if hee draws five cardes, hee may looke
at the nexte three, whych his Opponent may next draw. And after this,
the Dealer may draw up to eight, an there be so manie left in the
Stock: and if hee chooses, hee may turn the remaining cardes up, so
that both plaiers may see them. Elder is the better here, but shall
be Dealer in the next hand.

Now, the Elder declares his Ruff: the Ruff is the strength of a
single sute within the hand, wherein the Ace counts eleven, the
court cardes ten, and all other count as their pips: so if Elder
should have Ace, Queen, Ten, Nine, Eight of Hertes as his best
sute, hee would say, "I have a Ruff of Forty and Eight". And if
the Dealer can do better, hee declares his Ruff, else he lets
the Elder win it: and the winner scores one for every ten in the
Ruff, and one for any extra above five, as four pointes for a
Ruff of Forty-Two, five for Forty-Seven, or five yet for Fifty:
and hee who wins the Ruff shews the cardes in it. And if both
plaiers have Ruffs of equall strength, neither scores.

Sequences are scored next: and a Sequence is a run of cardes within a
sute, whych are continuous, as six, seven, eight, nine, or Knave,
Queen, King. And Elder declares the length of his greatest Sequence,
as, "I have a Sequence of four". And if the Dealer can better it, hee
declares so: and the Victor scores three points for a Tierce of three
cards and four for a Quart of four, yet hee scores fifteen if he has
a Quint of five, sixteen for a Sixism of six, and so up to nineteen
points for a parfait Ninism. And if the Victor has other Sequences in
his hand, hee may score these as well, but no carde may be scored in
more than one Sequence. If both plaiers have Sequences of equall
length, hee whose Sequence has the highest top carde wins; if both
Sequences have the same top, it is a tie, and neither plaier scores.
And again the Victor must shew the cardes with whych hee has won.

Last, the plaiers seek out Ternaries and Quatorzes: and a ternary is
three cardes of like rank, as the Kyngs of Hertes, Spades, and
Diamonds, and a quatorze is four cardes of like rank: and only ranks
of Ten or greater are counted here. As with the Sequence, Elder
declares his best Quatorze, or, lacking these, his best Ternary: and
if the Dealer can better this, hee says so: and any Quatorze will
defeat any Ternary, and the higher rank will defeat the lower. And hee
who has won may count for all the Quatorzes and Ternaries in his hand,
scoring three for a Ternary and fourteen for a Quatorze, shewing all
these cardes as they are scored. And there can be no tie in this: one
plaier will always defeat the other.

Now the plaiers begin to play tricks: and the Eldest will lead the
fyrst trick, with the Victor leading eche trick after. And the
follower must follow sute if hee can: if he can not, he may play
as hee will, but loses the trick. And if the trick has a carde
whose rank is ten or greater, the victor of the trick takes one
point for it: and if both cardes are ten or greater, he takes
two points. Hee who wins the final trick takes one point, or
two points if hee win it with a Ten. And hee who has taken the
most tricks scores ten points for it: but if he has won all the
tricks, it is a Capet, and hee scores Forty instead.

And there is another rule, that of the Piquet. If one plaier gains
thirty points in a hand ere the other has scored any, hee has won
a Piquet, and scores thirty more: and if hee does this before the
tricks have begun to be plaied, he wins a Repiquet, and scores yet
thirty more: and hee who wins a Repiquet will oft win the Set, for
hee has won Ninety or more in the hand, and draws near to an
hundred, if not above it.

In my next missive, I wyll describe another Game at Cardes. Yr
ob'dient, Justin duC, Novembre 25 in the yeere of Our Lorde 1596.

Endnotes
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[Typesetting note: phrases between underlines, _like this_, are
bibliographic citations, and should be underlined or italicized.]

This game looks more complex than it is; it takes a couple of hands to
get the hang of Piquet, but tends to be pretty straightforward after
that. Follow the instructions literally and in order once or twice;
I've attempted to make the description reasonably orderly. It'll take
a few hands to figure out how to draw well, but play is otherwise
pretty easy to follow. (As for drawing, a simple starting strategy is:
High Cards Are Good.) If you have questions, don't hesitate to ask
me.

It was one of the most popular and enduring games of period -- not
only is it one of the earlier card games, it is still sometimes played
today, in somewhat altered form. The legend of its invention by the
knight Lahire may well be apocryphal, and the business of the name
being associated with the suit of Pique is entirely made-up, but it
makes a good story; I get it mainly from Catherine Hargrave's _History
of Playing Cards_. This reconstruction is based on the 17th century
descriptions, but the game probably dates back to the 15th century.

This reconstruction is based directly on the descriptions given in
Cotton's _Complete Gamester_ and Cotgrave's _Wit's Interpreter_.
There is a reconstruction in David Parlett's _Dictionary of Card
Games_ which is slightly different; Parlett appears to be describing
the modern game, and some of the details differ.

As a rule of thumb, the phases go: Elder declares how strong his hand
is; Dealer betters it if he can; Winner scores points, and shows the
relevant cards; if there is a tie, no one wins anything. Note that you
can gain a lot of points in the early phases, but you give away a lot
of information in so doing, which can be a disadvantage during the
tricks. I suspect you can understate your hand if you want to; the
primary sources aren't explicit on the topic.

Note that, in the primary sources, it is *not* at all clear that
Sequences have to be in suit -- they might just be, for example, any
run of eight-nine-ten-Jack, not all in a suit. The modern rules
require Sequences to be in suit, but Cotton says nothing about it;
I've wavered back and forth. If Sequences are not in suit, they are
*much* more powerful; Sixisms and better become relatively common.
For now, I am leaning towards keeping them in suits, simply because
otherwise, the scores from Sequences often drown out the other
phases. Note also that Cotton says nothing about whether you can count
cards in multiple Sequences; I added that caveat that you can't, since
it makes the phase somewhat saner.

				-- Justin du Coeur