Welcome to Couillon with Mit!

Couillon with Mit is a fun card game for 4 players. You’ll split into two teams, with partners sitting opposite each other. You can choose your partners or let fate decide for you. The goal of the game is to be the first team to reach a score of 0. You achieve this by winning rounds. To win a round, your team must score more points than the opposing team.

The original game has a complicated scoring system and uses a special French-suited deck. But in the rules below, I’ll explain how to score and play with a regular 52-card deck. This makes it easier for everyone to join in the fun!

Getting Set Up

We’ll start by choosing the first dealer randomly. After each round, the dealer position will move clockwise to the next player. To make things easier, we’ll remove all cards with a value of 8 or lower from the 52-card deck.

So here’s how the game starts: The dealer shuffles the deck and then asks the player to their right to cut the deck. Next, the dealer deals a 3-card hand to the player on their left. Based on the cards they have, this player gets to choose the trump suit. If they don’t want to pick based on those 3 cards, no worries. The deal will go on, and the last card they receive will determine the trump suit. Either way, the dealer proceeds to deal each player 3 more cards. After that, the dealer puts a face-down talon of 4 cards on the table, and then deals each player 2 more cards. At this point, every player should have a 5-card hand.

Rankings and Values of the Cards

The cards follow the traditional ranking. The Ace is the highest, followed by the King, Queen, Jack, 10, and 9, with the 9 being the lowest. If you’re using French cards, the ranking is slightly different. The 1 is the highest, followed by Roi, Dame, Valet, 10, and 9.

In the game, each card has a point value. The cards are ranked from highest to lowest: 4 points, 3 points, 2 points, and 1 point. This means that each round can have a maximum of 40 points.

When playing with Mit, the queen of spades, something interesting can happen. Before any cards are played, the person holding the Mit can choose to declare it. When the Mit is declared, the rank of the trump suit changes. Ace becomes the highest card, followed by the queen of spades, king, queen, jack, 10, and 9. However, the Mit itself is still only worth 2 points.

But that’s not all. After the Mit is declared, the other team has the option to call Kontra, which doubles the scores at the end of the round. In response, the team that declared the Mit can call Re, effectively doubling the scores once again.

HOW TO PLAY

When it’s time to play, the person sitting to the left of the dealer will take the first turn, and then we’ll all take turns going clockwise. The first player can choose any card to play, and everyone else has to either play a card of the same suit or use a trump card if they have one. If someone doesn’t have a card of the same suit, they can play any card they want, even a trump.

The highest-ranking trump card, if played, will win the trick. If there are no trump cards, then the highest-ranking card of the suit that was led will win the trick. The winner of each trick gets to keep all the cards played and will start the next trick.

SCOREKEEPING

After all the tricks have been played, it’s time to tally up the scores.

So, here’s how it goes: each team starts with a score of 13. In each round, the team that scores the most points gets to decrease their score by one. And if they happen to win all 5 tricks, they decrease it by 2. But wait, there’s more! If the Mit was declared, the winners of the round get to decrease their score by an extra point. And for both Kontra and Re, if applicable, they also get to decrease it by another point. Sounds like a double-edged sword, right?

Now, let’s talk about the trump caller’s team. If the dealer’s team wins the round, they have to add a point to their score. Tough luck, huh?

But hey, if both teams score the same number of points in a round, there’s no change to either team’s score. It’s like a standoff.

Now, for the grand finale, the end of the game!

The first team to reach a score of 0 or less wins the game. And you know what? The first team to reach a score of 0 or less wins the game. It’s that simple, my friend.