Manille

Full rules

1. Overview
2. The cards
3. Setup
4. Choosing trumps and doubling
5. Playing the tricks
6. Scoring
7. Winning the game
8. Tips for beginners
9. Variants

Overview

Manille is a trick-taking game for four players in two fixed partnerships, played with 32 cards. Its hallmark: in every suit the 10 is the highest card – the manille – followed by the Ace. There is no bidding: the dealer simply chooses trumps, and the opponents may answer by doubling the stakes. Only the card points in the tricks you win matter, not the number of tricks. The first team to reach 101 points wins.

These rules follow the Belgian (Flemish) game, Manillen, still widely played in West Flanders. The older French form is described under Variants.

• Players: exactly 4, in two partnerships. Partners sit opposite each other.
• You need: one standard deck, reduced to 32 cards; paper and pencil for the score.

The cards

Take out all cards from 2 to 6. In each suit, 8 cards remain. They rank from high to low, and the top five carry card points:

The whole deck is worth 60 points. Note the unusual order: the 10 beats the Ace, and the Ace beats the King.

Setup

1. Partners and first dealer: agree on partners or draw cards; the highest card deals first. After each deal, the turn to deal passes to the left.
2. The dealer shuffles and the player on the right cuts (lifts off part of the deck and puts it underneath).
3. The dealer deals clockwise, starting on the left, in batches of 3, then 2, then 3 cards, so that everyone has 8 cards.
4. The dealer's partner must not look at their cards until trumps have been chosen – otherwise the cards are thrown in and the next player deals.

Choosing trumps and doubling

The dealer looks at their cards and names a trump suit – ♠, ♥, ♦ or ♣ – or no trumps, which doubles the score for the deal. The other players must accept the choice.

If the choice suits one of the opponents well, they may say "I go along" (Flemish ik ga mee): the score for the deal is doubled. The dealer or their partner may then answer "I go against" (ik ga tegen): doubled again, so four times. In theory this can go on, but more than that is rare.

Playing the tricks

A trick is one card from each player, played clockwise. The player on the dealer's left leads (plays the first card) to the first trick; after that, whoever won a trick leads to the next.

A trick is won by the highest trump in it; if there is none, by the highest card of the suit led (10 highest, 7 lowest).

The rules for which card you may play are strict:

1. Follow suit: if you can play a card of the suit led, you must.
2. Beat the opponents: if an opponent is winning the trick, you must try to win it: - When following suit, play a card of that suit higher than the winning card, if you have one. (If the winning card is a trump and a plain suit was led, you can't beat it by following – play any card of the suit led.) - If you can't follow suit, you must trump – and if an opponent has already trumped, you must overtrump (play a higher trump). If you can do neither, play any card of another suit. (In a no-trump deal simply play any card.)
3. Partner winning: if your partner is winning the trick, you need not beat them and need not trump – you may play any card that follows the first rule.
4. No undertrumping: once a trick has been trumped, you may never play a lower trump than the one winning it – unless your hand holds nothing but such trumps.

When your partner is winning, it is a good idea to throw them a card with points – "fattening" the trick.

Example: Spades are trumps. Anna leads the Q♥, Ben (her opponent) has no hearts and trumps with the 8♠. Carla, Anna's partner, still has hearts and must follow suit – she plays the 7♥, since no heart can win. Dan, Ben's partner, has no hearts; his partner is winning, so he need not trump and throws the A♦ onto the trick. Ben's team wins 2 + 4 = 6 points.

Scoring

After all 8 tricks, each team counts the card points in its tricks. Together they make 60, so it is enough for one team to count.

• The team with more than 30 scores the difference from 30; the other team scores nothing. With 38 points, a team scores 8.
• At 30–30, nobody scores, and the next deal counts double.
• A team that wins all eight tricks scores double (60).

Doubling: each of these doubles the score, and they multiply: no trumps; "I go along"; "I go against"; the tie in the previous deal; all eight tricks.

Example: After a 30–30 tie, the dealer chooses no trumps and an opponent says "I go along". The dealer's team takes 37 points: 7 × 2 × 2 × 2 = 56.

Winning the game

The first team to reach 101 points wins the game, called a tree (Flemish boom). In tournaments, a match is usually the best of three trees.

Tips for beginners

• Count the cards. Each suit has only 8 cards, and knowing which 10s and Aces are gone is how good players win with poor hands.
• Leading the manille (10) of a side suit is usually safe early on: it wins unless someone can trump.
• A bare Ace (with no 10 to protect it) is in danger. Try to throw it onto a trick your partner is winning.
• Try to get rid of all the cards of a short suit – then you can trump when it is led.
• As dealer, choose the suit in which you hold the most and highest cards. No trumps doubles the score – choose it only with strong cards (10s and Aces) in several suits.

Variants

• Blind no trumps: the dealer declares no trumps before looking at their cards; the score is multiplied by four. Mostly used by a team far behind.
• Limit on doubles: at most two doubles per deal, so the score is multiplied by 4 at most.
• Shorter or longer games: play to 61, 121 or 151, or a fixed number of deals.
• French Manille (manille muette): played anticlockwise. The dealer deals 4 + 4 and turns up their last card: its suit is trumps, and if it carries points, the dealer's team scores them at once. The player on the dealer's right leads. There is no doubling and no choice of no trumps, and each trick adds 1 point (68 in all); the team with more scores its points above 34. A game is 34 points, often played as two games plus a decider of 44. In this version you may undertrump if you can't overtrump. Partners must not talk – muette means "silent".