Rules

Classic Barbu

Before you start

Barbu has no official rules. It travels from table to table, and each has its own: the king of hearts costs 40 points here and 80 there, the queen is sometimes worth less than a heart, some families play six contracts, others seven, with 32 or 52 cards.

The version described below is the one most often met in France, cross-checked between several French sources. It is a starting point, not a truth.

Everything here is adjustable. Number of players, pack size, which king plays the Barbu, active contracts, the value of every card, slams, the order of contracts, the direction of play, doubling: each of them is set under Scoring. If your table plays differently, reproduce your own way, save it under a name, and you will find it again every game.

Equipment

4 players, each for themselves, a 32-card pack. Each player gets 8 cards, so there are 8 tricks per hand. Ranking, high to low: Ace, King, Queen, Jack, 10, 9, 8, 7. There is no trump suit.

Play

• The dealer may or may not shuffle, has the player on their right cut, then deals out the whole pack as they please — one by one or in twos.
• The player to the dealer's left leads to the first trick. Play goes clockwise.
• You must follow suit if you can; there is no obligation to play higher. Otherwise discard anything. The highest card of the suit led takes the trick and leads again.
• Each player leads one round, during which the six contracts are each played once, in the set order below: 24 hands in all.

The six contracts

1. No tricks — every trick taken costs −5. But whoever takes all eight scores +40 instead of −40: the slam mirrors the maximum penalty exactly.
2. No hearts — every heart costs −10. Whoever takes them all scores +80 instead of −80.
3. No queens — every queen costs −20. Whoever takes all four scores +80 instead of −80.
4. Barbu — the king of hearts costs −50 to whoever takes it.
5. The Salade — all the previous contracts mixed into one hand. Every trick, every heart, every queen and the Barbu are counted, and penalties stack within one trick: a trick holding two hearts and a queen costs the trick, the hearts and the queen at once. The only way out is the slam: taking every trick.
6. The Patience — also called the Suite or dominoes. A trickless hand, the only one where points are truly won: the first to shed every card scores +100, the second +50, the rest nothing.

The Patience in detail

• On your turn you may either open a suit or extend a sequence already started, by yourself or anyone else.
• A suit can only be opened by laying its 10.
• To extend, lay the card immediately below or above one already exposed, in the same suit: the 9 of hearts next to the 10 of hearts.
• Each suit grows at both ends at once: there is no direction to choose. It stops at the Ace at the top and the 7 at the bottom — you never go from the Ace back to the 7.
• Laying an Ace earns an immediate second turn.
• You must lay a card whenever you can: passing is only allowed when no card can be played. Blocking the game is still possible, but only through your choice of card.

Who wins

Totals run heavily negative. After the 24 hands, the winner is whoever has the highest score, that is whoever lost the least — the Patience and the slams being the only chances to climb back.

What varies from table to table

• With a 52-card pack, some tables play the Ace low at Dominoes, below the 2. Others let the first player to lay an Ace decide where it goes, above the King or below the 2 — that choice then holds for all four suits.
• Some tables pay the slam as a flat bonus, +40 whatever the contract, rather than mirroring the penalty avoided: the figure can be typed in under Scoring.
• The 52-card pack, 13 cards each, is just as common; the per-card values stay the same, the contracts simply weigh more.
• Values vary a lot: the Barbu runs from −40 to −80 depending on the table, the queen from −10 to −20, the trick from −5 to −10.
• The last two tricks contract, or the last trick alone, is added at many tables: both are available under Scoring.
• Some tables penalise jacks, or clubs rather than hearts, or name the king of spades or diamonds as the Barbu — all of it adjustable under Scoring.
• Instead of the fixed order, many let the player to the dealer's left, or the dealer themselves, pick the contract among those left.
• Trumps and doubling are not part of this version: they belong to the tournament version, among the variants.

None of these values is fixed. Number of players, pack size, which king is the Barbu, active contracts, the value of every card, slams and doubling are all set under Scoring, and a named set can be kept for later games.