The cards

64 cards: two packs of 7 to A. Rank from high to low: A 10 K Q J 9 8 7. Note that the 10 beats the King.

The deal

Each player gets 8 cards. The next card is turned face up. Its suit is trumps, and it sits under the stock. If it is a 7, the dealer scores 10.

Phase 1: while the stock lasts

• You do not have to follow suit. Play any card from your hand or from your melds on the table.
• The trick goes to the higher card of the suit led, or to a trump. If both cards are the same, the leader wins.
• Only the winner of a trick may declare one meld. Meld cards go face up on the table and stay part of your hand.
• Then the winner draws from the stock first, and the loser draws second. The winner leads next.
• The last face-down card goes to the winner of that trick. The loser gets the face-up trump card.

Melds

• Each new meld needs at least one card from your hand.
• A card can be in melds of different kinds (a King in a marriage and in four kings), but not in two melds of the same kind.
• Declare the royal marriage before the sequence to score both (290). The other way round, you only get 250.
• A bezique then a double bezique scores 540. Keep the cards on the table and do not play them.

Phase 2: the last 8 tricks

What phase 2 is for. A trick scores nothing on its own. It is worth the aces and tens inside it (10 each) plus 10 for the last trick. Phase 2 is where you collect the brisques still in play and keep the computer from getting them, and where trumps and aces you saved finally earn their keep.

• Meld cards go back into your hand. There are no more melds.
• You must follow suit, and you must win the trick if you can. If you cannot follow suit, you must trump if you can.
• The last trick scores 10.

Scoring at the end of each hand

Each Ace and 10 in the tricks you won (a "brisque") scores 10, added at the end of the hand. Meld points count the moment you declare them, so a score that sits at 0 mid-hand means no melds yet, not a bug. First to 1000 wins.

Count played cards (on by default) lets the hints use every card already played, the way a good player counts. Turn it off and the hints only use what is in view: your cards, the computer's melds on the table and the turn-up.

Strategy basics

• Lead low cards that do not help a meld (7s, 8s, 9s that are not trumps).
• Win tricks when you have a meld to declare, or when the trick holds Aces and 10s.
• Keep trumps and Aces for phase 2. That is where most brisques change hands.
• In phase 2, count the cards: you can work out exactly what the computer holds.