Bonjour Monsieur

Full rules

1. Overview
2. Setup
3. Playing
4. Winning a round
5. Ending the game
6. Tips for beginners
7. Variants

Overview

Bonjour Monsieur is a noisy Polish party game. Everyone plays cards onto a pile in the middle, one after the other – and some cards call for a reaction from all players: a shout, a greeting, a salute. Forget it, react too late or do the wrong thing, and you must take the whole pile into your hand. The first player to get rid of all their cards wins the round – and adds a new rule for the next round, so the game gets harder and harder.

In Poland the game is known by a rude rhyming name, which is also the call for the Ace (see History). This page uses a polite call instead.

• Players: 3 or more; best with 4–8.
• You need: one standard 52-card deck. A friend who doesn't play can act as referee.

Setup

1. Cards: take the 9s, 10s, Jacks, Queens, Kings and Aces – 24 cards. With more than 6 players, add more ranks (8s, 7s …) so that everyone gets at least 4 cards.
2. Deal: shuffle and deal all the cards out face down, one at a time, so that everyone has the same number. Put any leftover cards aside.
3. Pick up your cards. Choose who starts; play goes clockwise.

Playing

On your turn, play one card from your hand face up onto the pile in the middle, so that everyone can see it. As soon as it lands, everyone – you included – must react to it.

Reactions in the first round:

Instead of the French greetings you can use your own language – in Polish they are "Dzień dobry panu!" and "Dzień dobry pani!".

Mistakes: a player who

• doesn't react, or reacts too late,
• doesn't finish the words,
• does the wrong thing – for example greets a Jack, or says "madame" to a King,

must pick up the whole pile and add it to their hand. The pile is then empty, and play simply goes on with the next player in turn – the one after whoever played the card.

If more than one player makes a mistake on the same card, they share the pile: split it between them as evenly as possible.

The referee decides who made a mistake and who was too slow. Without a referee, the table decides together; players can take turns as referee.

Example: Anna plays K♥ – everyone says "Bonjour, monsieur!". Ben plays 9♣, and Carla automatically starts "Bonjour…" – a mistake: she takes the pile of two cards. Carla, pile in hand, plays A♠ and everyone shouts "Bishop's hat!" – except Anna, who is still laughing. Anna takes the A♠.

Winning a round

The first player to have no cards left wins the round. The reaction to your last card still counts: if you get it wrong, you take the pile and play on.

The winner now invents a new reaction for one of the ranks that doesn't have one yet – and it holds from the next round on. Popular choices from Polish descriptions:

• Jack: everyone salutes (two fingers to the forehead).
• 10: everyone puts a hand on the pile as fast as possible. The last hand there takes the pile.
• 9: any other simple task – clap, stand up, touch your nose.

Then shuffle all the cards and deal a new round with everyone's reactions in force.

Ending the game

There is no fixed end: play as many rounds as you like. If you want an overall winner, count who won the most rounds.

Tips for beginners

• Watch every card, even when it's not your turn – most mistakes happen while you are planning your own move.
• Play your quiet cards when the table is loud. A 9 after a string of Kings catches people greeting it out of habit.
• Keep new rules simple at first – and invent the tricky ones once everyone knows the basics.
• Say the whole greeting. Half a "Bonjour" counts as a mistake.

Variants

All optional – agree on them before you start.

• Dropping a rule: after a round, the winner may cancel a reaction instead of adding one. Now everyone has to stop doing something they are used to – which is where the fun starts.
• Bigger groups: the more players, the more cards; add a second deck for very large groups and give the extra ranks reactions too.
• Nobody takes it: if several players make a mistake on the same card, nobody picks up the pile (as described by spec.pl).
• Original calls: in Poland the King and Queen are greeted in French or Polish, and the Ace gets the game's rude name as its call.