Mus

Full rules

1. Overview
2. The cards
3. Setup
4. Mus or no mus
5. The four contests
6. Betting
7. Scoring
8. Winning the game
9. Signals
10. Tips for beginners
11. Variants

Overview

Mus is the great card game of the Basque Country and all of Spain. Two teams of two hold just four cards each and compete in four contests every hand: highest cards, lowest cards, pairs and points. In each contest you can bet – or bluff – and your partner helps you with secret signals. The first team to 40 stones (points) wins the game.

• Players: exactly 4, in two teams of two. Partners sit opposite each other.
• You need: a standard 52-card deck and about 40 small tokens (beans, coins, matches) – or paper and pen.

Points in Mus are called stones (piedras or tantos).

The cards

Take out all 8s, 9s and 10s and the jokers. You play with 40 cards: A, K, Q, J, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 in each suit. Suits don't matter at all in Mus.

Two special rules make strong hands more common:

• Every 3 counts as a King.
• Every 2 counts as an Ace.

So there are eight "Kings" and eight "Aces". From high to low the cards rank:

K (and 3) – Q – J – 7 – 6 – 5 – 4 – A (and 2)

For the points contest, cards have these values:

Setup

1. Direction: dealing, betting and play go to the right (anticlockwise).
2. Deal: the dealer shuffles, the player on their left cuts, and the dealer deals 4 cards to everyone, one at a time. The rest of the cards stay face down by the dealer as a draw pile.
3. The player to the dealer's right is the mano ("hand"). The mano always speaks first and wins every tie in this hand. After each hand, the deal passes to the right.

Mus or no mus

Before any betting, players may exchange cards. Starting with the mano, each player says either:

• "Mus" – "I'd like to exchange cards", or
• "No hay mus" – "no exchange".

If everyone says "Mus", each player (starting with the mano) discards 1 to 4 cards face down, and the dealer gives them the same number of new cards from the draw pile. Then everyone is asked again, and so on. (If the draw pile runs out, shuffle the discards and use them.)

As soon as one player says "No hay mus", the exchanging stops and the betting begins with the hands everyone now holds.

The four contests

Each hand has four contests (lances), always in this order:

1. Grande – highest cards

Sort your cards from high to low and compare them card by card: the higher first card wins; if equal, the higher second card; and so on. Example: K-3-4-4 (two Kings!) beats K-Q-Q-Q.

2. Chica – lowest cards

Sort your cards from low to high: the lower first card wins; if equal, the lower second card, and so on. Example: A-2-7-K beats A-4-5-6.

3. Pares – pairs

Only hands with two or more equal cards take part. There are three kinds, from weak to strong:

• Pair (par): two equal cards. The higher pair wins.
• Three of a kind (medias): three equal cards. Any three of a kind beats any pair.
• Two pairs (duples): two different pairs; four equal cards count as two pairs too. Any two pairs beat any three of a kind; compare the higher pair first, then the lower one.

4. Juego – points

Add up the values of your four cards. With 31 or more you have a juego (game). The juegos rank in this unusual order:

31 (best) – 32 – 40 – 37 – 36 – 35 – 34 – 33 (worst)

If nobody at the table has a juego, the fourth contest is played as Punto instead: the highest total wins (30 is best).

Ties: in every contest, if two hands are equal, the mano wins, or the player nearest to the mano's right.

Betting

The four contests are bet one after the other. In each one, starting with the mano and going to the right, every player may:

• pass (paso), or
• bet (envido) – at least 2 stones.

Once someone has bet, the opponents answer:

• fold (no quiero) – the betting side immediately gets 1 stone (or, after a raise, the stake before that raise), and the contest is over;
• see (quiero) – the bet stands; the cards decide the winner at the end of the hand;
• raise (reenvido) – add at least 2 more stones; now the other side must fold, see or raise.

Either partner may answer for the team. If partners disagree, the bolder answer counts (raise beats see, see beats fold).

If everybody passes, the contest is played "in passing": the best hand wins at the end of the hand (see Scoring).

Before Pares and Juego, each player in turn says truthfully "yes" or "no" – do you have a pair / a juego? Betting only happens if both teams have at least one "yes"; then only the players who said "yes" may bet or answer. If only one team has them, that team scores them at the end without betting; if nobody has any pairs, the Pares contest is skipped. If nobody has a juego, everyone says so and you bet on Punto instead.

Órdago

Instead of an ordinary bet or raise, you can shout "Órdago!" – you bet the whole game on this contest. If the opponents fold, you get the usual fold stones. If they accept, all players show their cards at once: the team with the better hand in this contest wins the game immediately.

Scoring

Cards are only shown at the end of the hand. Then you score the four contests in order – Grande, Chica, Pares, Juego/Punto:

Pair values – the winning team scores for both partners' pairs: pair 1, three of a kind 2, two pairs 3.

Juego values – the winning team scores for both partners' juegos: a juego of 31 is worth 3, any other juego 2.

If a team won a Pares or Juego contest because the other side folded, it has already taken its fold stones and still scores its own pair or juego values at the end.

Example: Anna (mano) and Carla play against Ben and Dan. Anna holds K-3-Q-A (two Kings, 31), Carla J-J-5-4 (a pair, 29), Dan K-Q-7-7 (a pair, 34), Ben 7-6-5-4. Grande: everyone passes. Chica: Ben bets 2, Anna sees. Pares: Carla bets 2, Dan folds – Anna and Carla take 1 stone at once. Juego: Anna and Dan say "yes"; Dan bets 2, Anna sees. At the end: Grande 1 (Anna's K-K beats Dan's K-Q), Chica 2 (Anna's Ace is lowest), Pares 1 + 1 (Anna's and Carla's pairs), Juego 2 + 3 (Anna's 31 beats 34). Anna and Carla score 1 + 1 + 2 + 2 + 5 = 11 stones.

Winning the game

The first team to reach 40 stones wins. Because scoring goes in order, a team can win halfway through the counting – later contests are then not scored. A match is usually best of three games.

Keeping score with stones: one player of each team keeps single stones, the partner keeps the fives (amarracos): every five single stones become one amarraco. With seven amarracos (35 stones) you must warn the others by saying "dentro" ("inside").

Signals

In Mus you may tell your partner about your cards with agreed facial signals (señas). They must be made so that the opponents could see them – catching the other team's signals is part of the game. The usual ones:

Tips for beginners

• Kings for Grande, Aces for Chica. With eight of each in the pack, a hand like K-K-A-A is strong in both.
• Watch the "yes" and "no". The announcements before Pares and Juego tell you a lot about the other hands.
• Use your position. The mano wins all ties; the dealer's team speaks last and hears everything first.
• Bluff sometimes – but not too often. Opponents who fold give you only 1 stone.
• Keep órdago for when it counts, e.g. when the opponents are close to 40.

Variants

All optional – agree before you start.

• Four Kings: in the Basque Country and Navarre, 3s and 2s often rank normally (K Q J 7 6 5 4 3 2 A), so there are only four Kings and four Aces.
• Game to 30: many players in Spain play to 30 stones instead of 40.
• Juego real: three 7s plus a 10-point card (31 points) beats every other juego; some tables require one particular Jack.
• Silent Mus: no signals allowed.