How to Play the Fan Tan Option in Barbu

Video Transcript

"Fan Tan, dominoes if you will, because they use that term I guess in some of the European sites. And it is just basically an old fashioned card game that really gives a premium emphasis on being able to get rid of lead, get rid of the hand. Dumb all of your cards out first. Fan tan will remind you a little bit of solitaire. For example, I believe in solitaire you have to alternate the suites, you know king of spades, queen of hearts a red card, then a black card and a red card. But the thing is the sequencing. It is the natural order of play. It is the absolute sequencing of the game that makes the difference. Fan tan is rich, it is fat. It is forty points, it is forty points for the taking. Unfortunately, if you do not get the forty or at least twenty-five it is a disaster. You do not want to call fan tan then shell over forty points to some body else. It makes me feel warm and fuzzy if I can rip off some body else's fan tan call. Because then if I can get forty on my own, that is eighty points. That is going to make up for a lot bad hands if you have got queens or even the King of Hearts. When do you call fan tan? Well you certainly, and we will just hold this illustrative hand to the side for a second. That is a bad fan tan hand, why? Well, you have got the ace of spades and the three of spades. Aces are high, deuces are low. There is no downtown. So in order for you to get rid of this spade suite it is going to take an awful lot of power to get this thing, to get the opponent to play this for you. Same problem here, tops and bottoms. This is an okay suite, this one is a little better. Fan tan you never call when you have aces and kings and deuces and threes or fours in the same suite; there is just too much of a spread. Now let us look at an ideal fan tan hand. Now that is a beauty."