How many points in Belote? Card values, contract and a free counter

Card values

All Belote scoring rests on the card values, which change depending on whether the card is in the trump suit or not. The jack and the nine of trumps are the strongest cards in the game.

Card total: 62 in trumps + 3 × 30 off trumps = 152 points. The last trick scores 10 points more (the “dix de der”), making 162 points per deal.

Taking or passing

After the first deal (5 cards each), one card is turned face up: it proposes the trump suit. In the first round of bidding, each player starting to the dealer’s right may take at that suit or pass. In the second round, a player may take at another suit. If everyone passes twice, the cards are redealt. The team that takes commits to scoring more points than the opponents.

Scoring a deal

1. Each team adds up the cards in its tricks, plus 10 for the last trick.
2. Add the declarations: belote-rebelote (king and queen of trumps in the same hand, announced) is worth 20; a tierce (three-card sequence) 20, a fifty (four cards) 50, a hundred (five cards) 100; four of a kind according to the table below.
3. If the taking team has strictly more than the other, each team scores its points.
4. If it has less, it is inside (“dedans”): the opponents score 162 plus the declarations of both sides (the belote stays with whoever holds it).
5. At 81 all it is a tie (“litige”): the takers score 0, the defenders score 81, and the remaining 81 go to the team that wins the next deal.

To round or not

Many tables round each deal score to the nearest ten (82 becomes 80, 87 becomes 90; a 5 usually rounds in favour of the taking team when it succeeds). Others count to the point. Decide before you start and stick to it: the counter accepts both.

The end of the game

The game is most often played to 1,000 points (sometimes 501, 2,000 or 3,000). As soon as a team reaches or passes the target at the end of a deal, it wins. If both teams pass it in the same deal, the higher one wins; on a perfect tie, play another deal.

Variants

• Classic Belote without declarations: only belote-rebelote and the capot count. The most common family version.
• Belote with declarations: tierces, fifties, hundreds and fours of a kind, announced on the first trick.
• Belote contrée / coinche: you bid a value (80, 90…) instead of taking; see the Contrée page.
• Belote for 2 or 3: individual versions with a dummy hand or a draw pile; same card values.

Common mistakes

• Forgetting the last-trick bonus: the last trick is worth 10 extra points, whatever it contains.
• Making 81 and thinking you’ve won: at 81–81 the taking team has not made “more”: it is a tie.
• Counting the belote against a team that is inside: it stays with the team that declared it, even if that team is inside.
• Playing the wrong way round: Belote is played anticlockwise; the deal passes to the right.

Frequently asked questions