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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Written Trictrac, although it has existed in a simple form since at least the end of the 17th century, came into its own by fleshing out its rules at the end of the 18th century. It became the reference game of the three great treatises on the game of Trictrac published during the first half of the 19th century. The rules set out here require knowledge of those of the base game, Trictrac in Twelve Holes.
1. Principles
Written trictrac is played over several rounds called "sets". To win a set, a player must make more holes than his opponent. The points earned on a set depend on the difference in the number of holes made by the two players and on the manner in which the holes were taken, consecutively or not.
In addition to these two essential payments, there are four kinds of bonus, one called "consolation" and the other three "tails". Some of these tails may or may not be counted, but the consolation is always paid.
2. Sets
A set is a round of written trictrac, and the number of sets played over the course of a game is always even. Generally the number of sets played is equal to 6, 8, or 12, depending on how much time one is prepared to devote to the game.
3. Playing a set
As long as neither player has reached the sixth hole, a set is played exactly as in the classic game. Once one of the two players has reached or passed the sixth hole, if either one ends the set, the set is over, the points are tallied and the pieces are set up again for the following set. The winner of the set is whoever has made the greater number of holes. If, when the set ends, the two players have exactly the same number of holes, there is a "tie" and no one wins this set, which must be replayed, even if the player who ended it had the flag. The winner of the set will therefore have a minimum of six holes, but the question is how high his maximum can be, and the answer is that there is no upper limit: when a player passes the twelfth hole, he continues marking his holes starting again from the first hole; for example, if I have 11 holes and I win 3 more, that gives me a total of 14 holes, and I place my peg in my second hole, which will count as the fourteenth. We see that the essential difference in how a set unfolds compared to the classic game is that it can only end when a player calls a halt, and therefore only by a player's will to bring it to an end. Since the number of holes thus has no upper limit set, the classic game has come to be called "the game in twelve holes", since it is solely the fact that a player reaches or passes the twelfth hole that brings it to an end, whether on his own throw of the dice or on his opponent's.
4. Points earned on a set
The number of points that a set directly earns its winner is calculated as follows: The winner's number of holes increased by the "consolation", the whole then reduced by the loser's number of holes. The "consolation" counts for 2 points. If the set played followed a tie, the consolation would be 4 points, and if it followed two ties in a row, it would be 6 points. Ties carry the consolation forward. If the player won the set by making all of his holes consecutively (evidenced by the flag if the loser had taken holes first), two cases arise: he made six to eleven holes, in which case he is said to have won the set in "small bredouille" and he doubles his number of holes as well as the consolation; he made twelve holes or more, in which case he is said to have won the set in "great bredouille" and he quadruples his number of holes as well as the consolation. From the result of this operation, the loser's plain number of holes made still has to be subtracted. Example
1: Example
2: Example
3: Example
4: Important
conclusion from comparing examples 3 and 4:
5. Ending a set and losing it
When a player ends the set while he has fewer holes than his opponent, and at least the latter has reached the sixth hole, he loses the set, and if he has the flag he does not benefit from it. The flag is only taken into account if it is held by the player with the greater number of holes. Example
: The motivation for this kind of abandoning of the set to the opponent is often the risk of an enfilade should one be tempted to hold on. But everything must be carefully weighed before making the decision. In addition to the gains brought by small and great bredouille, one must add the additional flat-rate points earned by sets at the end of the game, and above all the bonus for the player who has won the greatest number of them, which we shall look at now.
6. Set points and the tail of the sets
Once the agreed number of sets has been played, the sets are paid out: Each set won earns 4 points. The player who has won the most sets receives a bonus of 20 points called the "tail of the sets". The tail of the sets, given the size of its amount, also influences the players' decision on whether or not to end a set.
7. Keeping track of the points won
Once the agreed number of sets has been played, the sets are paid out: Written trictrac, as its name indicates, requires a sheet of paper and a pencil to keep track of the two players' scores. Example of a completed scoresheet for a game of six sets:
Remarks : Set no. 3: there was one tie, the base consolation is multiplied by 2 and is worth 4 instead of 2. Set no. 5: there were two ties, the base consolation is multiplied by 3 and is worth 6 instead of 2. Small and great bredouilles do not appear in the table, but the number of points shown for each set takes them into account.
Before the payment of the sets, player B is ahead by 5 points, but once this payment is made it is player A who ends up the winner. This is an example highlighting the importance of the payment of the sets. The final result is rounded up to the next ten if the units are 5 to 9, and down to the ten if the units are 1 to 4. For example 55, 56, 57, 58 and 59 are counted as 60, while 51, 52, 53 and 54 are counted as 50. Only the rounded result is taken into account.
8. Tail of the tokens
In the scoresheet above there appears a line of accounting labeled "tail of the tokens"; we shall first look at how it is calculated, then at the origin of the expression. Calculation : The "tail of the tokens" benefits only the player who has obtained the most points over the course of the sets ( total I ), and in case of a tie, the player who has won the most sets. We shall see its method of calculation in both cases based on the example scoresheet above. Player B, having achieved a total of points ( I ) higher than that of player A, benefits from the tail of the tokens, which amounts to 2 points per set won; so here player B, having won two sets, gains 4 points. If player A had scored more points than player B, he would have benefited from a tail of the tokens of 8 points for the four sets won. In case of a tie in points ( total I ) between the two players, it is whoever has won the most sets who counts the tail of the tokens, but counting 1 point per set that he has more than his opponent; thus in the example scoresheet, in case of a tie, it is player A who would score 2 points of tail of the tokens, having won two more sets than B. Origin of the expression : The name "tail of the tokens" comes from the fact that most often the bookkeeping of written trictrac was done not on a sheet of paper, but with tokens which were used for payments between the players. To keep track of the number of sets played, the loser of a set was required to place outside the board, on the side of the heels, two of his tokens. Thus if one were playing six sets, the fact that six times two tokens were laid out signaled the end of the game. The player who had won the most tokens over the course of the sets then took possession of all the tokens laid out, which constituted the tail of the tokens. Some treatises on the game of trictrac mention that if the accounts are kept on paper, the tail of the tokens is not counted; however, one could argue that the tail of the tokens had no more reason to exist when counting with tokens than on a paper scoresheet. So, since the tail of the tokens presents the significant advantage of being able to partly offset the effect of the tail of the sets, it is worth keeping its principle when recording the results on paper. One might also note that the payment of the sets, with the obvious exception of the tail of the sets, could be made at the same time as the consolation if the tail of the tokens did not exist, without this changing anything about the final result, which was not taken into account by the detractors of the tail of the tokens when they kept their accounts on paper.
9. General tail
When trictrac was played for money, the winner had the loser pay him the rounded result increased by a flat sum determined by the players at the start of the game. This flat sum, a wager having nothing to do with the game itself, was called the "general tail" and was only optional.
10. Duration of a game of written trictrac
A game can be very long; if one takes for the duration of a set a range of 15 to 45 minutes, one sees that for 6 sets the game can last from 1h30 to 4h30, for 8 sets from 2 to 6 hours, and for 12 sets from 3 to 9 hours. Experience shows that one tends to come closer to the higher number of hours than to the lower one. Playing only 4 sets gives too much importance to the tail of the sets. On the other hand, while the game in twelve holes is played without interruption and lasts between 30 minutes and 1h30, it is possible to split the written game preferably by pairs of sets.
11. Priority
At the very start of a game of written trictrac, priority is decided by chance, each player rolling a die onto the board, and the player who has rolled the higher number takes both dice and rolls them for the first move of the game. For the following sets, it is whoever won the previous one who has priority. In case of a tie, the player who had priority keeps it.
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