PILOTTA

Hey there! Let’s talk about Pilotta, a cool card game that you can play with four people. The goal of the game is simple: you and your teammate need to score 351 points before your opponents do.

Pilotta is a game that you play with a partner. It’s really exciting because you and your partner sit on opposite sides, forming two teams of two.

GETTING READY

First things first, we need to set up the game. Here’s what you need to do: we’re going to remove all the cards from the deck that have a rank of 6 or lower. This will give us a smaller deck with only 32 cards.

Now, we need to decide who the dealer is. One way to do this is by choosing a dealer randomly and having the role pass to the left for each new round. The dealer will shuffle the deck and give each player 8 cards.

UNDERSTANDING CARD RANKING AND POINTS

The ranking and points of the cards will depend on which suit is called as trumps. If a suit is chosen as trumps, the cards of that suit will have a special ranking. The ranking goes like this: Jack (highest), 9, Ace, 10, King, Queen, 8, and 7 (lowest). If the suit is not trumps, then the cards will have a different ranking: Ace (highest), 10, King, Queen, Jack, 9, 8, and 7 (lowest).

Let’s talk about how many points each card is worth depending on its suit. In the trump suit, the Jack is the most valuable card, worth a whopping 20 points. The 9 comes next, giving you 14 points. The Ace is worth 11 points, the 10 is worth 10 points, the King is worth 3 points, and the Queen is worth 2 points. You won’t get any points for the 8 and 7 in the trump suit, though.

Now, for the other suits, things are a bit different. The Aces are worth 11 points, just like in the trump suit. The 10s, on the other hand, are worth 10 points, just like before. As for the Kings, they give you 4 points. The Queens are worth 3 points, and the Jacks are worth 2 points. Unfortunately, the 9s, 8s, and 7s don’t give you any points in the other suits as well.

Oh, and don’t forget about the last trick! It’s worth a cool 10 points. So, if you add up all the points from the cards and the last trick, you can earn a total of 162 points.

Bidding

So, here’s how it goes: we start by dealing out the cards. Once that’s done, we all gather ’round for a round of bidding. This is where things get interesting, because here’s where we decide on the trump suit. Each player gets a chance to declare the trump suit they want, and not only that, they also need to say how many points their team will aim to take.

Now, when it comes to bidding, players can either make a bid or pass. Once a player passes, though, they can’t bid anymore. It’s all about strategy, you see. The minimum bid is 80, and bids have to go up in 10-point increments. The bidding keeps going until everyone but one player has passed. That player becomes the bidder, and they have the power to set the trump suit for the round.

But wait, there’s more! If all four players end up passing without making a bid, then we start all over again. The cards are collected and redealt, and we go back to square one.

DECLARATIONS

When playing a card game, teams have the chance to earn extra points by declaring specific combinations. Before playing their card to the first trick, each player must announce their highest-valued combination and reveal it again before playing to the second trick. The team with the highest-valued combination can score all of their combinations, while the opposing team cannot. However, the Pilotta combination, which includes both the King and Queen of trump, is an exception. The team that holds the Pilotta can always score it and it’s worth a whopping 20 points.

Let me break it down for you. When you’re playing this game, the combinations of cards have different values. There are certain sequences of 3 or more cards that have to be in consecutive order of the same suit. And the order they have to follow is 7, 8, 9, 10, Jack, Queen, King, and Ace. If you have 3 cards in a row, you get 20 points. If you have 4 cards in order, that’s 50 points. And if you have 5 or more cards in order, that’s a whopping 100 points!

Now, there’s also something called a “set” of cards. A set is when you have four cards that are all the same rank. And there are certain sets that you can declare to get points. You can declare Aces, 10s, Kings, and Queens, and each of those sets is worth 100 points. If you’ve got a set of Jacks, that’s worth 200 points. And a set of 9s will get you 150 points. But here’s the catch: you can’t declare 7s and 8s.

GAMEPLAY

When we play the game, I get to play the first card. I can choose any card I want. Then, it’s your turn, and you have to follow the suit if you can. If you can’t, you have to play a trump card. But if a trump card has already been played, you have to try to beat the highest trump card. And if you can’t follow suit or play a trump card, you can play any card you want.

The winner of each round is the person who played the highest trump card. If there are no trump cards played, then the winner is the person who played the highest card of the suit that was led.

After someone wins a round, they get to lead the next round.

SCORING

Once we’ve played all 8 rounds and someone has won each round, we can start keeping score. Both teams add up their scores. And don’t forget, you get 10 extra points if you win the last round. But we don’t count the points from the declarations yet.

If my team successfully completes our contract, we both get the points we earned for that round. But if we fail, the other team not only gets their points but also the points we could have had. It’s a tough decision, but if we manage to win all 8 tricks, we score a whopping 250 points instead of the usual 162.

Scoring involves taking the point values and dropping the last digit. That means we have a total of 16 game points to divide between the two teams. For example, if one team has 100 points and the other has 62, the first team gets 10 points and the second team gets 6. But if we end up with only 15 points after dropping the last digit, the team with the higher digit gets that extra point. If there’s a tie, the team with the most points wins the point.

When it’s time to tally up the score in trick points, the stake, or the highest bid, gets added to the team that earned more points for that round. Then, the team with the highest-valued declaration gets to score all the combinations their team had.

GAME OVER

The team that reaches a total of 351 points first wins the game. If a team believes they already have the necessary 351 points to win during a round, they have the option to end it early and calculate the points. If they indeed have 351 or more points, no matter what the other team’s score is, they are declared the champions. However, if they fall short of 351 points, they lose, and the other team takes the victory.