This page is a translated archive of the original Académie des jeux oubliés, created on July 1, 2026, from the French original at salondesjeux.fr.
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This page is a translated archive of the original Académie des jeux oubliés, created on July 1, 2026, from the French original at salondesjeux.fr.
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The
Game of L'Hombre
The game of L'Hombre played in France mainly during the second half of the seventeenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth century was a gambling game using a complex system of stakes, debts, and payments between players. As a bidding game, it offered only two possible contracts, which could lead to frequent hands going unplayed when none of the players wished to commit to either contract, for fear of losing too much. Yet the game of L'Hombre was not without potential. Credited with having been the first contract-bidding trick-taking game in the history of card games, it can, in this respect, be considered the ancestor of Bridge. In Denmark, since the nineteenth century, the game of L'Hombre has been adopted with the addition of several contracts. Today, Danish players have turned the game of L'Hombre into a competitive game by ridding it of its financial aspect through the removal of stakes, debts, and payments between players. The number of contracts has grown from two to nine, thereby reducing the number of hands that go unplayed. The game is scored in points and is preferably played in duplicate, as in Bridge. Clubs for this form of L'Hombre are fairly numerous and are affiliated with the Danish federation, the Dansk L'hombre-Union. It should be noted, however, that this way of playing L'Hombre – without stakes – removes an important component of the original game, which consists of the player who has won the bidding being able to more easily divide his two opponents.
1. Number of players and deck of cards
The game of L'Hombre is played by three players, with a deck of 40 cards obtained from a 52-card deck from which the tens, nines and eights have been removed.
Red
cards in descending order:
Black cards in descending order: K, Q, J, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2
Two things can be noted: in red, the order of the low cards is reversed, and in black, the ace is missing.
The reason for the disappearance of the black aces from the natural order – by "natural" we mean outside of trump – will be explained in the next chapter. As for the reversal of the order of the low red cards, it is purely arbitrary – to remember it, it is enough to note that the red ace comes right after the jack, the low cards following in the order 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, thus making the 7 the lowest red card.
The trump suit is chosen by one of the players following a bidding system. Depending on the suit chosen, the order of the cards changes relative to the natural order.
Regardless of the suit chosen, the black aces are always trumps.
Two cards are always trumps: the ace of spades, called Spadille, and the ace of clubs, called Basto. This is the reason the black aces do not exist in the natural order.
The Spadille is the highest trump and the Basto, the third-highest.
The second-highest trump, which ranks between the Spadille and the Basto, is called the Manille. When a suit is chosen as trump, the lowest card in the natural order of that suit becomes the Manille. Thus, if the trump is hearts or diamonds, the Manille will be the seven, and if it is spades or clubs, it will be the two.
These three trumps (Spadille, Manille and Basto) are called the Matadors.
Under certain conditions, the Matadors carry privileges which will be detailed in the rules for play of the cards.
When the trump chosen is red (hearts or diamonds) the corresponding ace leaves its place behind the jack to move ahead of the king.
This ace thus becomes the fourth trump, behind the three Matadors. The ace thus promoted takes the name Punto.
In a red suit, trumps in descending order: [S, 7, B], A, K, Q, J, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
In a black suit, trumps in descending order: [S, 2, B], K, Q, J, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3
We see that, due to the presence of the Punto, there are 12 trumps in red, whereas in black there are only 11.
Players'
positions around the table are set by drawing
three cards from the deck – a king, a queen and a jack –
which one player fans out face down for the other two
to choose from. Whoever draws the king chooses his seat, whoever draws the queen
sits to his right, and whoever draws the jack sits to his left.
The
first dealer is the player who drew the king. He takes the forty-card
deck, shuffles it, has it cut by the player to his left, then
deals nine cards to each player, three at a time. Dealing, like
the bidding and the play, proceeds clockwise.
Once the three players have been dealt their cards, the dealer places the remaining thirteen cards
to his right; they form the talon.
The eldest hand is the player seated to the dealer's right.
A hand is the span of time between two deals. The same player may not deal twice in a row. The eldest hand of the hand that has just ended becomes the dealer for the next hand.
A
game lasts thirty hands, in other words ten deals
per player.
L'Hombre is a trick-taking game. The winner of a hand is whoever has taken the greatest number of tricks out of the nine possible. To take a trick, a player must have played a card stronger than those played by the other two players, following the rules in the next chapter.
Throughout a hand, the player who has just taken a trick leads for the next trick – he is said to have the lead.
Players must follow the suit led by the eldest hand for the first trick, or by whoever has the lead for subsequent tricks.
If a player does not hold the suit led, he is not obliged to trump.
There is no obligation to head the trick in any suit whatsoever, including trump.
If the leader played a trump other than one of the three Matadors, the following players must follow suit in trump but are not obliged to play a Matador, even if they hold no other trumps.
If the leader plays a Matador, the others must play a trump if they hold one. They may play a Matador if they wish, but nothing obliges them to, with one exception: they are only required to play a Matador if the leader played one stronger than the one they hold and they have no other trumps – the strongest Matadors, played by the leader, only force out the weaker ones if they are the only trump left in hand. Consequently, if the leader plays the Manille and one of the following players holds only the other two Matadors, that player will not be obliged to play his Basto, but he must then take with his Spadille, and if he does not do so, he must then play his Basto, which is forced by the Manille. If a Matador is not forced, and a player has no other trumps, he may discard any card in order to keep it. A Matador played by the second player does not force the weaker ones held by the third. The Basto, being the lowest Matador, can never force the other two.
Any player, when it is his turn to play a card, has the right to turn over his own tricks, as well as those of the other two players, to examine them, but outside of his turn, he is not allowed to do so. It is good practice not to abuse this privilege, for the sake of the flow of the game.
After
each deal, bidding begins among the players, on
the basis of well-defined contracts. The player who wins the bidding is called
the ombre, the other two are the opponents.
The two opponents play as a team against the ombre, but each keeps his own tricks separately and they must remain silent.
Only
the ombre can win or lose points. The number of points is tied
to the contract the ombre has undertaken to fulfill.
L'Hombre
is a trick-taking game. At the end of a hand, depending on the
number of tricks taken, the ombre may win,
lose remise or codille. He may also make the vole or
fail to make it.
Won : the ombre is whichever player has taken the most tricks, which happens when he takes five tricks out of the nine possible, or four tricks when one opponent takes three and the other two.
Remise : the ombre loses remise if he takes the same number of tricks as the opponent who took the most, which happens when he takes four tricks and an opponent also takes four, or when the ombre and each of the two opponents take three tricks each.
Codille : the ombre loses codille if an opponent takes more tricks than he does.
Vole : once the ombre has taken five tricks, he has won and may stop there, but if he plays a sixth card, he implicitly commits to attempting the vole. In this case, if the ombre takes all nine tricks, he wins the vole; if he does not take them all he fails to make it. Failing to make the vole does not take away the ombre's benefit of having won, but costs him one point. Successfully making the vole earns the ombre one additional point. The vole is the equivalent of a grand slam in Bridge.
There are nine contracts, classified into two families :
A
: the two main families of contracts. B
: the various contracts. C
: points scored by the ombre if he wins, or deducted
if he loses remise. D
: points deducted from the ombre if he loses codille.
Request : when the ombre wins this contract in the bidding, he may choose any one of the contracts with discard except the Grand Turned. If he keeps Request, he announces the trump suit and must discard between one and all of his cards, then completes his hand with the same number of cards taken from the top of the talon. The player to his right may then discard, in turn, as many cards as he wishes according to what remains in the talon, and then the last player does the same if at least one card remains in the talon. When making a discard, one must announce the number of cards discarded.
Request in Spades : the trump is spades, the ombre and the opponents discard as in Request.
Turned : the ombre turns up the top card of the talon; the suit of this card is trump. The ombre must discard at least two cards, he takes for himself the turned-up card and the following card(s) needed to complete his hand. The opponents do the same as in Request.
Nolo by Request : the ombre undertakes to take no tricks at all and there is no trump. He makes his discard as in Request (generally he changes only one card) and the opponents are not allowed to discard. If the ombre takes no tricks, he wins; if he takes a single trick, he loses remise ; as soon as he has taken two tricks, he has lost codille. The vole of course does not apply.
Grand Turned : identical to Turned, but in order to choose this contract the ombre must hold in hand the Spadille and the Basto. The ombre shows the Spadille and the Basto and proceeds as for an ordinary Turned.
Possibility of Conceding : after making his discard and seeing what he drew, the ombre is free to concede, at the latest before playing his first card, in which case he loses remise. This way of proceeding allows him to avoid losing codille. Conceding is only possible for the discarding contracts, excluding the Nolo by Request.
Note 1 : the five discarding contracts are ranked in the table, from left to right, from weakest to strongest. Note 2 : Turned and Nolo by Request are two contracts of the same rank, so that one cannot outbid a Turned with a Nolo by Request, nor a Nolo by Request with a Turned.
Without Taking : when the ombre wins this contract in the bidding, he may choose between Without Taking or Without Taking in Spades. If he keeps Without Taking, he announces the trump suit, which must be different from spades. The opponents make their discards as in Request.
Without Taking in Spades : the trump is spades, the opponents discard as in Request.
Pure Nolo : the ombre undertakes to take no tricks at all and there is no trump. No one is allowed to discard. If the ombre does not take any trick, he wins; if he takes a single trick, he loses remise ; as soon as he has taken two tricks, he has lost codille. The vole of course does not apply.
Open Nolo : identical to Pure Nolo but the ombre plays with his hand exposed.
Note
1 : Without
Taking in Spades and Pure Nolo are two contracts of the same
rank, so that one cannot outbid a Without
Taking in Spades with a Pure
Nolo, and vice versa. Note 2 : the contracts without discard are stronger than the contracts with discard.
The Nolo contracts, by request or pure, require the ombre to take no tricks at all. They are played without trump.
Since the Nolo contracts are played without trump, the Matadors no longer exist, and the black aces become the lowest cards of their suits. There is no longer a Punto, nor a Manille.
Order of the red cards in Nolo: K, Q, J, A, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
Order of the black cards in Nolo: K, Q, J, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, A
The purpose of the bidding is to determine which player will be the ombre and will play against the two opponents.
To win the bidding and thus become the ombre for the hand, one must announce the highest-ranked contract among those announced by all three players.
Once the deal is made, each player looks at his nine cards, and the eldest hand announces his contract or passes.
A player who passes can no longer take part in the bidding.
The bidding takes place first between the eldest hand and the second player. Once only one of the first two players has passed, the bidding continues between whichever of the first two held his bid and the third player. Of these last two players, whichever does not pass will be the ombre.
When the first two players have passed, the third player may choose his contract and become the ombre, but he may also pass in his turn. If all three players have passed, the hand is not played and the eldest hand becomes the dealer for the next hand. A hand that has not been played still counts among the hands of the game, that is to say it counts among the thirty hands.
When two players bid against one another, the first to speak holds the right simply to match the second player's bid in order to obtain the contract, whereas the second player must necessarily outbid the first player's choice in order to win it.
We have seen that the discarding contracts and the non-discarding contracts each include two contracts of identical rank. Under the right of precedence, if the second player announces one of the two contracts of the same rank, the first player may respond by choosing either the same contract or the other one of the same rank. On the other hand, if the first player announces one of the two contracts of the same rank, the second player must necessarily announce a contract of higher rank or else pass.
Example : Let there be three players A, B, C, where A is the eldest hand and C, the dealer.
B announces Request C bids up with Nolo by Request (he is obliged to bid up or pass) B matches with Turned (B draws the benefit of precedence by matching with Turned, he could also have matched with Nolo by Request or bid up or passed) C passes A and C having passed, B is the ombre with the contract Turned.
B Request in Spades A Turned B Passes Bidding between A and C C Nolo by Request A Passes
A and B having passed, C is the ombre with a Nolo by Request contract.
A Request B Turned A Passes Bidding between B and C C Pure Nolo B Without Taking in Spades C Passes
A and C having passed, B, who benefited from precedence, is the ombre with a Without Taking in Spades contract.
A Request B Passes C
Passes
Remark : The first player not to pass, and who is not the last, benefits from simply announcing Request, precedence allowing him to match the contract of the next player.
It is possible to play L'Hombre with four players, but only three players are active.
The fourth player is always the one seated opposite the dealer.
Each of the four players becomes the fourth player once every four hands.
The fourth player's first role is, on the first hand, to place a second forty-card deck to his left, and on subsequent hands the new fourth player gathers up the cards that were used and places them in a pile to his left. Thus in both cases, the next dealer always has a deck ready at his right.
The fourth player's second function is to keep the scoresheet up to date. He must not interfere in any way with the play of the three active players.
The game is played over forty hands, so as to compensate for one player sitting out each hand. By the end of the game, each of the players will have played thirty hands, as in the three-player game.
NAMING OF THE CONTRACTS
1.
The contracts in Denmark and their translation into French
Spil (Game)
Bedre spil (Better game) : Request in Spades
Tourné (Turned) : Turned
Købe Nolo (Nolo with purchase) : Nolo by Request
Tourné-Respekt (Turned-Respect) : Grand Turned
Solo (Alone) : Without Taking (to remain consistent with the game of L'Hombre of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries)
Solo Spar (Spades alone) : Without Taking in Spades
Ren Nolo (Pure Nolo) : Pure Nolo
Nolo Ouvert (Open Nolo) : Open Nolo
Tout (All) : Vole (to remain consistent with the game of L'Hombre of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries)
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