How to Count Cards in Barbu

Video Transcript

"Counting cards in Barbu. In any card game, there is a premium for counting cards. There is a premium, there is a reward for the knowledge of not only being able to count cards but remember which cards have been played, which cards are out. For example, in the game of Barbu, if you are on lead and you haven't bothered to count, and you happen to have a deuce in your hand and you're thinking oh, ok, well it's a deuce, I should be able to get off the lead with this. The king of hearts hasn't been played or you're playing queens, and you lead the deuce and you fetch three queens, or fetch the king of hearts and you say oh, my god, it's only the deuce. Well, does the deuce mean anything? Yes, it does. If there's twelve diamonds have been played, that's what we call number thirteen and that's as good as an Ace. Now, I know people aren't counting because if they had this diamond at the end of the game or it told in the middle of the hand, they wouldn't bother to lead that. But isn't that the same as this when you think about it? If that's the thirteenth diamond, you know not to lead that. If that's the thirteenth diamond, you should know not to lead that one either. So, that's the thing about tracking cards. Same thing with queens. If you know that after three rounds of a suit, that you hold the queen of a suit and the ace or king is out, just like in hearts with the spear play, and you've got the queen of clubs, and the suit has gone three times and somebody still has, somebody took a discard and the king of clubs is still out and you've seen the ace and you're on lead, throw the queen of clubs. You, you nail or spear the ace and somebody else may draw a queen on him too. So, that's the whole thing, tracking cards. Is that jack of clubs good? Is that ten of clubs good? If you're not taking the time to track cards, you're not playing the card game. You're just throwing cards, there's no strategy and so forth. Count the cards when you're playing any of the trump games. Count the number of cards that have been played in the suit. If you're playing fan tan that's no problem, because you can see what's bee played. You have to plan you're playing fan tan. Count the cards, track the cards, make the strategic discards, and definately know which, there's a reward to know which cards are good and which ones you can escape. Critical part of the game."