Manille

Manille is a trick taking card game of Iberian origin that became firmly established in France during the early twentieth century, played with a 32 card piquet deck. The standard form is a four player partnership game, with two teams of two players sitting across from each other, though variants exist for two or three players. Card values in Manille run opposite to their normal ranking in many other card games: tens count as the highest value card in a suit, followed by aces, kings, queens and jacks, with each of these five ranks worth a fixed number of points from five down to one, while the remaining lower cards are worth nothing at all, a scoring quirk that gives the game its name. Before play begins, the dealer announces the trump suit for the deal, choosing among five possibilities in the same style as bridge: clubs, diamonds, hearts, spades, or no trump. Teams then compete to capture tricks over the course of a deal, scoring points for the valuable cards their side captures rather than simply for the number of tricks won, and a team typically needs to reach 101 points, or to lead after a fixed number of deals, to win the match. Manille remains actively played today mainly in the north and south west of France and in the western part of Belgium, though its popularity in France was long ago overtaken by the rise of the related game belote.