L'Enflé

L'Enflé is a simple card game whose rules can be found in several nineteenth-century collections. It was described there as a simple but entertaining game, aimed mainly at children. However, as Joseph Méry wrote in L'Arbitre des jeux, many card games could be characterized in the same way at the time. Indeed, the simplicity of a game fits perfectly with the essential goal of the players when it is merely to win money from the others, something that is, of course, no longer in fashion nowadays...

L'Enflé is played by four to eight players with a deck of 52 cards.

In each of the four suits – spades, hearts, diamonds, clubs – the cards follow this descending order :

2. Deal

Each player draws a card at random from the deck spread out on the table, face down, and whoever draws the lowest shuffles the cards, offers them to be cut to the player on his left, and deals to each player counterclockwise, starting with the player seated to his right, who will be the first to play – being the first to play a card is an advantage in this game.

Depending on the number of players, the deal for each is as follows :

4 players : 12 cards, with 4 left in the stock
5 players : 10 cards with 2 left in the stock
6 players : 8 cards, with 4 left in the stock
7 players : 7 cards, with 3 left in the stock
8 players : 6 cards with 4 left in the stock

4 players : in batches of 3 - 3 - 3 - 3
5 players : in batches of 3 - 3 - 2 - 2
6 players : in batches of 3 - 3 - 2
7 players : in batches of 3 - 2 - 2
8 players : in batches of 3 - 3

L'Enflé is a trick-taking game. For the first trick, the first to play a card is the player seated to the right of the dealer, and for subsequent tricks it will be the winner of the previous trick. Play proceeds counterclockwise.

Players are not allowed to renounce, meaning they must follow suit if possible.

However, any card of the suit led may be played.

If all the players were able to play a card of the suit led, whoever played the highest card takes the trick. He keeps it, face down, in front of him and leads the next trick.

If a player was unable to follow suit and had to renounce, he must pick up all the cards played before him and add them to his hand. He is said to "enfle" (swell up). The trick is immediately over, and he leads the next trick.

So, in both cases, it is whoever takes the trick, either by setting it down in front of him, or by adding it to his hand, who leads the next trick.

The hand ends immediately when a player has managed to get rid of all the cards in his hand.

When a hand has ended this way, a new one can begin, and it is the player seated to the right of the previous dealer who deals the new hand. To do so, he gathers up all the cards, shuffles them, has them cut by the player on his left, then deals them.

There are no predefined rules on these matters; what follows is a personal suggestion :

To start a game, each player receives a number of chips equal to the number of players taking part.

Before each hand, each of the players puts one of his chips into a pot placed to the right of the dealer. The pot thus makes its way, hand by hand, all the way around the table.

The game ends once every player has been the dealer. The game therefore lasts a number of hands equal to the number of players.

By playing this way, even if a player never wins a hand, he will always have a chip on hand to put into the pot.

The player who ends up with the greatest number of chips will be the winner of the game.