TRESSETTE RULES

Number of Players:

Tresette is a partnership card game for 4 Players divided into 2 Teams composed of 2 Players each. A 40 card deck, divided into 4 Suits (Spades, Cups, Sticks and Coins), is used to play this game.

How to Play:

As Tresette is a Team game, it is possible to choose your own Team mate. When a Player sits at the Table if his Team Mate's chair is empty he takes control of it. Every time another Player tries to sit in the empty chair to become his Team Mate the sitting Player can accept or refuse to play with that Player, for a maximum of 3 times.
As soon as all seats are taken, the game begins. Cards are shuffled and given counterclockwise until the deck is over. At the end, thus, each player will have 10 cards.



A “Round” consists of 10 hands, in which each player plays his own card.
The player who holds the 4 of Golds starts the game by dropping any card. The dropped card sets the leading Suit. The other Players must play a card of the leading Suit if they have any, starting from the player who is on the immediate dealer’s right going on counterclockwise. The hand is won by the Team Player which plays the leading Suit card of the highest Rank. He will lead to the next hand dropping another card of whatever Suit he wants setting, once again, the leading Suit for that hand. The game keeps on like this until the cards in the players’ hands are over.
A “Piombo” is when you hold no more cards of the leading Suit. In this case you can drop cards of any other Suit which, usually, are those of the lowest Rank. You can therefore play whatever card you like but you won’t be able to win the hand since you didn't play a leading Suit card. At the end of the hand the scoring for each Team is the result of the cards taken during that hand added up with the results of the scoring of the previous hands. The game ends when one of the two Teams scores a certain score, according to the table that players have chosen. (11, 21 or 31 Points)

Ranking of the Cards:



Hands are won according to the following card Rank (from Highest to Lowest):

Three (3)
Two (2)
Ace (1)
King (10)
Knight (9)
Jack (8)
Seven (7)
Six (6)
Five (5)
Four (4)

Each card beats all the other ones of a lower Rank. A hand cannot end in a draw because only cards of the leading Suit can win the hand, and moreover, two cards of the same value of a specific Suit do not exist.

Scoring:

To calculate the score of each Team at the end of a hand the following point value is assigned to the cards:



Ace - 1 Point
Figures (King, Knight, Jack) and High-Rank cards (Twos and Threes) – 1/3 of a Point.
Low-Rank cards (4,5,6,7) – 0 Points.

As you can see easily, the different point value among the cards isn’t closely related to their rank, as previously said, to assign the hand. The game is thus more interesting from a tactical and strategic point of view, as the strongest card (Three) is not the one that gives the highest score. On the contrary, that card is the Ace.
It is easy to calculate that in a deck there are 10 points and 2/3.
To avoid assigning points that are not full, the fractional points are eliminated and an additional point is given to the Team that has won the last or the tenth hand. This way in every round it is possible to scor up to 11 points.

The Shout:

In a Tresette game, a Player is not allowed to reveal his cards, not even using signs (such as nodding, shaking your head…).
A “Shout” gives the possibility to obtain extra points respect to the 11 that the classic deck gives, in case a Player holds a particular combination of cards.

In detail:

Goodgame – when a Player holds three Aces, three – Twos, or three - Threes
This combination gives 3 points. In case of 4 identical cards the Goodgame becomes a Supergoodgame and it gives 4 points.

Naples - when a Player holds an Ace, a Two and a Three of the same Suit.
This combination gives 3 points.

A Player can declare multiple Shouts, in case he holds one or more Goodgames and/or Naples. In this case the points gained are equal to the sum of the points of a single Shout.
A Player can declare a Shout only during his turn and only until he holds the cards that make the combination possible.


Two players variation of Tressette:

The two player variation of tressette (one against one) The Tressette "heads up", i.e. one against one, is played using the same rules of the classic Tressette with the difference that when the cards are dealt there will be 20 cards left on the table, since each player will receive 10 cards. Starting from the first hand, every time both players play a card they will then draw a card from the deck on the table (as it happens in Briscola), with the only difference that in this case they will have to show it to each other. In the two player variation of Tressette players can still "shout" during the first three hands, and a "shout" can also be achieved with the cards drawn from the deck on the table before the fourth hand is played.


Some Advice and Strategy:

The Player who starts the game should play the strongest Suit (that is the Suit of which he has more cards and of highest value).
It is always useful to take care of the cards that have already been played trying to remember them in order to understand if the cards you are holding are able to win the hand even not being those of the highest rank.