You should start playing Truco

Truco is my favorite card game.

Its mix of trick based gameplay and Poker style betting creates a beautiful balance of luck and skill expression. One day you’ll casually play with friends over a few beers, another you’ll debate whether you’ve been properly realizing your hand equity. Learning Truco can be daunting, so I curated and explained all the rules for you here.

All you need is a deck of Spanish playing cards to get started with this beloved Argentinean card game.

Some background

You will love Truco if any of the following is true…

• You enjoy playing card games like Schafkopf, Skat, or Bridge.
• You enjoy the betting in Poker, but want a simpler version that can be played without money.
• You are looking for a fun game to play with only a deck of cards.
• You like games where game-theory optimal play is not obvious.

Truco is a card game that’s very popular in many parts of South America, with each region often having their own rules. This guide focuses on the Argentinean version since that’s where I learned the game and first started playing it seriously.

While I’m generally a stickler for rules, I found online rulesets to be incomplete or not in service of a competitive gameSidenoteCard games are ultimately based on luck. Nonetheless, a better player should be able to beat a worse one in expectation. Therefore, I decided to adjust rules that offset the balance between luck and skill to make the game more fun for me.. Therefore, I curated the rules below based on two principles.

1. The ruleset should be complete and easy to follow.
2. The ruleset should make the game fun.

So, read through this guide, start playing with your friends, and adopt the game to your needs. I am by no means a Truco-purist.

The rules

You need a deck of Spanish playing cards to play. The deck will have 40 cards: no 8s, 9s or 13s. Jack and Queen become 11 and 12.

Truco is played with 2, 4, or 6 players⊕I highly recommend 4 or 6 players!. The teams are predetermined and do not change during a round.

• A 2 person game is played 1v1.
• A 4 person game is played 2v2. Team membership alternates around the table. Therefore, on a round table you sit across from your partner.
• A 6 person game is played 3v3. Team membership alternates around the table. See 6 Players for more info.

The basic structure of the game

1. The first team to 30 points wins.
2. Betting can occur throughout the round to increase the point value of the round.
3. After each round, the points are added to the teams’ totals, the dealer rotates, and new cards are dealt.
4. A round (ignoring betting) consists of…
   1. Each player gets dealt 3 cards.
   2. 3 tricks are played one after another.
   3. The person to the right of the dealer (el mano) starts.
   4. Counter-clockwise and one after another, each player plays one card face upSidenoteTraditionally, cards are placed face up directly in front of you. This lets everyone see all previously played cards. I prefer placing all cards on top of each other in the middle, and giving the winner the trick face down. This rewards card counting.. You can play whatever card you want.
   5. The winner starts the next trick. If it was a tie, the same person starts.

Card order

1 of Swords
1 of Clubs
7 of Swords
7 of Coins
3 - 1
12 - 4

Truco has 4 trump cards: 1 of Swords, 1 of Clubs, 7 of Swords, and 7 of Coins. These are the 4 highest cards in the game. After that, you have 3, 2, the remaining 1s, 12, 11, 10, 7, …, 4.

Aside from the trump cards, suits do not matter. A trick that consists of two cards of the same value will tie.

The deal

• The dealer shuffles and lets the person to the left cut the deck. The person to the left can tap the deck to skip the cut.
• Cards are dealt one-by-one counter-clockwise until each player has 3 cards.
• The deck is placed to the right of the dealer⊕Do not forget this! It’s very useful to resolve ties and keep the game moving quickly.. The player to the right of the dealer is called el mano. El mano opens the first trick.
• El mano will become the dealer for the next round in 2 and 4 player games. In 6 player games, the same dealer will deal twice.

Truco Betting

Each round of Truco has two separate betting “games”. The first, Truco betting, bets on the actual trick playing of the game. In other words, the winner of the tricks will win the Truco bet.

All the betting terminology uses reserved words. Saying any of the words marked as reserved will commit you to that action. Be careful, someone might trick you into saying one of them.

By default a round of tricks is worth 1 point. A team can raise the value of the round as follows.

• If nothing has been called, Truco will raise the stakes to 2 points. The other team can accept with Quiero, fold using No Quiero, or re-raise using Retruco. Folding will give the other team 1 point.
• If Truco has been called previously, you can re-raise to 3 points by calling Retruco. Once again, the other team can accept with Quiero, fold using No Quiero, or re-raise using Vale Quatro. Folding will give the other team 2 points.
• If Retruco has been called previously, you can re-raise to 4 points by calling Vale Quatro. The other team can only accept or fold. No further raising is possible. Folding will give the other team 3 points.

Truco can be called at any point! This means you can call Truco before you play a card, after you play a card, or even during someone else’s turn.

Only the team that accepted a raise can re-raise. They can re-raise at any point. Therefore, team A can accept B’s Truco with Quiero and one trick later A can call Retruco, but B cannot.

If a team folds by saying No Quiero, the round stops immediately. No team needs to show any of their remaining cards - unless you won Envido.

Envido Betting

The other form of betting is called Envido. This is a separate “game” where you bet on the card values in your hand. A round of play always has the trick based Truco game, but if no Envido is called, there will be no Envido points. If an Envido bet is accepted, the player with the highest Envido score wins the bet.

You calculate your score as follows:

• Each card is worth its number, except for 10, 11, and 12 which are worth 0.
• Pick two cards in your hand and add them together. That will be your score.
• If you have two cards of the same suit, you can add 20 to your score.

Thus, the highest possible Envido is a suited 6 and 7, which will score as $6+7+20=33$. A suited 11 and 5 will score as $0+5+20=25$⊕As a rule of thumb, I would consider anything 28 and higher a good Envido..

You can bet Envido only before you play your first card in the first trick. You can have your partner call Envido if you already played your card. Letting others play cards before you call Envido can give you additional information about their hand.

The exact rules of betting are as follows. Please remember that these are reserved words.

• If you have not played any cards this round and no Envido bet has been called, you can call Envido to play for 2 points. The opposing team can accept with Quiero, fold with No Quiero, and re-raise. Folding will give the other team 1 point.
• If you have not played any cards this round and no Envido bet has been called, you can call Real Envido to play for 3 points. The opposing team can accept with Quiero, fold with No Quiero, and re-raise. Folding will give the other team 2 points.
• If you have not played any cards this round and no Envido bet has been called, you can call Falta Envido to play for as many points as the leading team needs to winSidenoteI dislike Falta Envido and being able to raise Envido for more points than Truco because, ultimately, I want to play a trick based game - not a hand drawing game with tricks on the side. The game is called Truco after all and not Envido.. The opposing team can accept with Quiero, fold with No Quiero. Re-raising is not possible. This is akin to going all-in. Folding will give the other team 1 points.

Traditionally, you can re-raise as long as the re-raise is at least as large as the previous bet. I listed all possible sequences of bets in the table below. Note, that Falta Envido could always be called as a re-raise action. Falta Envido overrides any previous Envido raising, i.e. if the leading team needs 2 points, but Real Envido was previously called, the Envido bet is still only worth 2 points.

If an Envido bet gets accepted, the last person to raise starts by calling out their number. Then, counter-clockwise players can either say their number or son buenas. Son buenas admits that you cannot beat the current highest Envido. Once everyone has responded, the winner is clear and the trick playing continues. Ties go to the player closest to the mano.

At the end of the round, you may be asked to show your Envido cards. If you said the wrong number earlier, the other team automatically wins the Envido bet.

Envido is resolved separately from Truco. This means that if a team rejects the Envido bet with No Quiero, the trick based Truco game continues as normal.

Envido takes precedence over Truco. This means that you can respond to a Truco bet from your opponents by calling Envido. In that case, the other team will have to respond to your Envido bet first, before you have to respond to their Truco bet. Obviously, you can only do this if someone on your team hasn’t played a card at all yet.

As you can see, Envido gives weaker hands a chance to earn points through clever betting. This is one of the reason why Truco is a very dynamic game where good strategy can shine.

Resolving ties

After a tie, the same player that opened the previous trick starts again.

• If the first trick ties, the second trick is winner take all.
• If the second trick ties or trick 1 and 2 tie, the third trick is winner take allSidenoteTraditionally, the winner of the first trick would win here. I like the tension of the 3rd trick..
• If the third trick ties or all 3 tricks are ties, the mano wins.
• If two Envido scores are the same, the player - not team - closer to the mano wins.

Scoring

Points for Envido and Truco are added to the team’s total after the round finishes. This means that if a game is tied at 29-29, team A calls Envido and team B calls Truco, and both are rejected, the score will be 30-30SidenoteIf you decide to score Envido as it is called, team A would win here..

The first 15 points are called malas and the next 15 points are called buenas. So, a score of 3 malas to 5 buenas corresponds to a score of 3-20. This means you can keep track of the score using 15 beans per team, resetting the bean count once you cross from malas to buenas.

Resigning

At any point a player can decide to resign by placing their cards face down on the deck. At this point they can no longer win any tricks. Their partner could continue playing alone.

If you called Envido, you can be asked to prove your Envido score even if you throw away your cards. In that case, you must show the Envido cards.

Flor betting

I do not play with Flor. It’s a complicated form of betting when you have 3 cards of the same suit. Unlike Envido, Flor must be called when you have it and must not be called otherwise. This makes it a purely luck based mechanic, which I decided to remove from the game. Playing without flor is a variant called sin flor and not super uncommon.

6 Players

A game of 6 players is played by alternating rounds of 3v3 and three 1v1s. Both rounds are played with the standard Truco rules.

First, a round of 3v3 is played as usual. Then, three 1v1s are played. These 1v1s are played against the player across from you (3 to your right). The dealer deals cards for all players. Then, each 1v1 is played one after another. Each 1v1 will have its own Truco and Envido betting. This means that later 1v1s will know what cards have already been played. Each player represents their team and the scores get added to the teams score after all hands have been played.

To ensure that the starting positions are fair, the dealer needs to deal both the 1v1 and the 3v3 before the dealer rotates. Otherwise, the same team would always be in position for the 3v3.

A quick recap

• Games are played to 30. You play with the person across from you.
• Each round consists of 3 tricks played Bo3.
• Mano starts the first trick. The winner of a trick starts the next one.
• Each round has betting for Truco and Envido.
• After a bet you can be fold (No Quiero), accept (Quiero), or (usually) reraise.

Signals

This is the standardized set of signals that you can use to communicate your hand to your partner. You should learn these and use them as much as you can. They are an essential part of the game. If both teams use the same signals, you can catch the other team’s signals to give you an advantage.

If both teams agree to it, each team can instead create their own set of signals. Now, the game becomes a little bit more about code cracking than secrecy.SidenoteYou might run into someone that despises custom signals. But, this is one of these instances where I think the rules should allow for whatever is fun for you.

An example round

TODO: mermaid chart
|-- B --|
|       |
Y       X
(deck)  |
|-- A --|

• Y is the dealer. A is mano.
• Signals are exchanged. Specifically, X signals to Y to call Envido by tilting the head.
• A plays the 6 of Coins.
• X plays the 7 of Cups.
• B plays the 3 of Cups and calls Truco.
• Y responds by calling Envido. (Y has not played a card yet, and Envido takes precedence.)
• A declines by responding No Quiero. (1 point to team XY)
• Now, XY needs to respond to the Truco bet. They accept with Quiero and Y plays the 3 of Swords.
• The trick ties, so A will start again. A plays the 2 of Clubs.
• X re-raises by calling Retruco. B declines with No Quiero. (2 points for XY)
• XY gets 3 points total, and A becomes the dealer.

Just start playing

You now have all the necessary knowledge to start playing. If you want to learn some strategy, I suggest you read my introduction to Truco strategy.