Coinche rules

Coinche — belote contrée — replaces the Armenian bidding ladder with a real auction, and adds the move the game is named after: doubling an opponent's contract because you think they cannot make it.

Belote Club follows the widely used Belote.com-style ruleset. The numbers below are the ones the engine enforces.

The auction

Instead of promising a share of the deal, you bid the number of points your team will take. Bidding runs from 80 to 160 in steps of 10, plus two special contracts.

  • Normal contracts: 80, 90, 100, 110, 120, 130, 140, 150, 160
  • Capot — all eight tricks — is worth 250
  • Générale — all eight tricks taken by the declarer alone — is worth 500
  • Each contract is played in a trump suit, in sans-atout (no trump), or tout-atout (all trump)

Coinche and surcoinche

An opponent who believes the contract will fail can coinche it, doubling its value. The declaring side can answer with surcoinche, quadrupling it. The multiplier applies to the contract value only, not to the whole round — so a coinched 100 is worth 200, not double everything on the table.

  • Coinche — ×2 on the contract value
  • Surcoinche — ×4 on the contract value
  • Both are a bet on the outcome, not a change to how the cards are played

Card values

The same trump-jack-first ordering as the rest of the family. In sans-atout the ace is worth 19; in tout-atout every suit uses the trump column.

CardPlain suitTrumpNo-trump
A111119
10101010
K444
Q333
J2202
90140
8000
7000

152 card points plus 10 for the last trick — 162 in a deal.

Making the contract

This is where Coinche is stricter than it looks. A normal contract needs at least 82 card points from tricks before anything else counts. Melds and belote cannot substitute for that floor — they only help once you are over it.

Above the floor, card points plus valid melds have to reach the bid. Capot and générale are judged on their own terms rather than by this rule.

  • At least 82 card points from tricks, always
  • Then card points + valid melds must reach the bid
  • Belote and rebelote are always credited to the team that declared them, even on a failed contract
  • Other melds are not protected when the contract fails

Melds

Runs score by length, exactly as in the Armenian game:

CardsPoints
320
450
5100

Belote and rebelote — king and queen of trump — are worth 20.

Four of a kind

Coinche uses the French values, which differ from the Armenian ones in the nine and the ace:

CardArmenianCoinche / melds
J200200
9140150
A110100
10100100
K100100
Q100100

Use the Coinche column. Every player who declared a run or a square shows it during the show window, even when another team holds the biggest one.

Scoring and the target

Coinche counts raw points — there is no division by ten — and a match runs to 701. A failed contract gives the defenders the card points plus the multiplied contract value plus any unprotected melds, while the declaring side keeps only its belote.

Common questions

What does coincher actually do?

It doubles the value of the opponents' contract. If they still make it, they collect double; if they fail, you do. Surcoinche raises the same bet to four times the contract value.

Why did my contract fail with more points than my bid?

Because of the 82-point floor. Melds can carry you from 82 up to your bid, but they cannot replace card points from tricks — under 82 in tricks, the contract fails regardless of melds.

Is Coinche the same as Armenian Blot?

No — same family, different game. Coinche uses an 80–160 auction, raw points to 701, and its own four-of-a-kind values. They are separate modes here, with separate ratings.

Play a hand

Free to play. No install, no ads between hands, no betting.