Game rules

Truco Rules: How to Play Paulista, Mineiro and Argentine Truco

Truco is a bluffing card game for four players in two teams, hugely popular in Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay. There's no single rulebook and no national governing body: every region has its own truco, and clubs, towns and tournament organizers write their own rules, with small differences. In São Paulo, tournaments follow the rules of the Federação Paulista de Truco, the state truco federation; in southern Brazil, traditional gaúcho tournaments follow their own truco rulebook. Below are the traditional rules of three of the most widely played styles: Paulista and Mineiro truco from Brazil, and Argentine truco, which is also played in southern Brazil, where it's called truco gaudério. At the end of the page, you'll find a summary of how Truco works on Selminha.com.

Updated October 27, 2026

The goal

Every hand is worth points. In Paulista and Mineiro truco, the first team to reach 12 points wins. In Argentine truco, games usually go to 30 points, or 15 for a short game; in southern Brazil, they go to 24.

Truco is a bluffing game: the value of a hand can go up in the middle of play, and a team that doesn't like its cards can fold and concede the points already at stake.

Players, teams and direction of play

There are four players in two teams, and partners sit across from each other. Play goes counterclockwise: the player on your right goes after you. Truco is also played one-on-one and, especially in the Argentine style, with six players in teams of three.

The 40-card deck

Truco uses a standard deck with the 8s, 9s, 10s and jokers removed, leaving 40 cards. Each player gets three cards. Argentine truco is traditionally played with a Spanish deck, whose suits are swords, clubs, cups and coins and whose face cards are a king, a knight and a jack instead of a king, a queen and a jack.

Card ranking

In truco, you don't have to follow suit: you can play any card you want. Apart from the top cards, suits don't matter. From highest to lowest, the order is 3, 2, ace, king, jack, queen, 7, 6, 5 and 4 (with a Spanish deck: king, knight, jack). Two cards of the same rank, like two 3s, tie.

The top cards

The top cards, called manilhas in Brazil, are the four strongest cards in the game, above the 3s. They're the biggest difference between the three styles.

Paulista: the turn-up card: After the deal, the dealer turns up the next card from the deck, the vira. The top cards are the four cards of the next rank up, one in each suit, in the order 4, 5, 6, 7, queen, jack, king, ace, 2, 3; after the 3, it goes back to the 4. If the turn-up is a 7, the top cards are the queens. Among the top cards, the suit decides: clubs (the zap), hearts, spades and diamonds.
Mineiro: fixed top cards: There's no turn-up. The top cards are always the same, from highest to lowest: the 4 of clubs (the zap), the 7 of hearts, the ace of spades and the 7 of diamonds.
Argentine: fixed top cards: There's no turn-up either. From highest to lowest: the ace of swords, the ace of clubs, the 7 of swords and the 7 of coins (with a French deck: the ace of spades, the ace of clubs, the 7 of spades and the 7 of diamonds).

How a hand is played

The player to the dealer's right goes first.
A hand has up to three rounds. In each round, every player puts one card on the table, in turn.
The highest card wins the round, and whoever played it leads the next round.
The first team to win two rounds wins the hand.
The deal passes to the right after every hand.

Tied rounds

When the two highest cards in a round tie, one for each team, the round is a tie. In Argentina and southern Brazil, a tied round is called parda.

If the first round ties, the team that wins the second round wins the hand.
If the second or third round ties, the team that won the first round wins the hand.
If the first two rounds tie, the third round decides.
If all three rounds tie, it depends on the table. At many Brazilian tables, nobody scores; at others, the dealer's team wins. In Argentine truco, the team that led the hand wins.
In Argentine truco, after a tied round, the player who led that round leads the next one.
In Paulista truco, the state federation's rules add two more. If a hand of eleven ends with all three rounds tied, the team at 11 loses and the other team scores 3. And there's the exposed-card rule: if a round ties and one of the tying cards was already on the table when the last call in that round (truco, six, nine or twelve) was made, the team that made that call loses the hand, even if it won the first round, and the other team scores the accepted value.

Truco: calling, accepting, folding and raising

On your turn, before you play a card, you can call truco to raise the value of the hand. The other team answers and has three choices: accept, and the hand is worth what was called; fold, and the calling team scores what the hand was worth before the call; or raise, and then the calling team has to accept, fold or raise again. Once a call is accepted, only the team that accepted it can make the next raise.

Paulista: A hand is worth 1. Truco: 3. Six: 6. Nine: 9. Twelve: 12.
Mineiro: A hand is worth 2. Truco: 4. Six: 6. Ten: 10. Twelve: 12. At many tables in Minas Gerais, the steps are different: truco 4, six 8, nine 10 and twelve 12.
Argentine: A hand is worth 1. Truco: 2. Retruco: 3. Vale cuatro: 4. Calls are answered with quiero (accept) or no quiero (decline). Under traditional gaúcho rules, truco can be called at any time, even when it isn't your turn.

The hand of eleven and the iron hand

In Paulista truco, when a team reaches 11 points, it plays the hand of eleven: the two partners look at each other's cards and decide whether to play or fold. If they play, the hand is worth 3 and nobody can call truco; if they fold, the other team scores 1. If both teams reach 11, they play the iron hand: nobody looks at their own cards, and whoever wins the hand wins the game.

In Mineiro truco, the same rule usually applies when a team reaches 10 points: the hand of ten, worth 4. If the team folds, the other team scores 2. With both teams at 10, they play the iron hand. Argentine truco has no hand of eleven.

Envido and flor in Argentine truco

In Argentine truco and in southern Brazil, there's a second bet in the same hand: envido, which is based on the cards you hold. It can only be called in the first round, before you play your card, and only one envido bet is settled per hand. When truco is called for the first time, either player on the other team who hasn't played a card yet can answer with envido first: envido comes before truco.

If you hold two cards of the same suit, your envido is 20 plus their face values. Kings, knights and jacks count as zero. The highest possible envido is 33, with the 7 and 6 of the same suit. Without two cards of the same suit, your envido is the face value of your highest-numbered card. Under gaúcho rules, three face cards in different suits make an envido of 0, and between two zeros, the highest face card wins: king, then knight, then jack.

Envido: Worth 2 if the other team accepts and 1 if they don't. It can be raised with a second envido, real envido or falta envido.
Real envido: Worth 3 if the other team accepts. Under gaúcho rules, it can be called more than once, 3 points each time.
Falta envido: Worth the points the leading team still needs to win the game.
Who scores: If the other team accepts, the team with the higher envido scores the total of all the calls; on a tie, the team that led the hand wins. If they decline, whoever made the last call scores what the bet was worth before that call (1 for a single envido).
Flor: Three cards of the same suit. A player with flor has to call it, and there's no envido in that hand. A flor is worth 3.
Flor against flor: If both teams have flor, the first player with flor on the second team answers the first flor called: flor (at the end of the hand, the team with the higher flor scores 3 for each flor called); contraflor (if accepted, the higher flor scores 6; if declined, the team that called it scores 4); contraflor al resto (if accepted, the higher flor scores 6 plus what the leading team still needs to win the game; if declined, 4); or con flor me achico (the other team scores 4). On a tie, the team that led the hand wins. These are the gaúcho values, and they vary from table to table.

Envido points and a lone flor count right away, even if the hand goes on. When flor meets flor and the flors are compared, the points are settled at the end of the hand.

Signals, face-down cards and dropping out

Partners can trade subtle signals to show which cards they hold. In Brazil, a wink usually means the zap, and raised eyebrows mean the top card in hearts. Each table or tournament decides whether signals are allowed, and some ban them outright.

In Paulista and Mineiro truco, and at many Argentine tables, from the second round on, a player can play a card face down. A face-down card is worth nothing in the round, and nobody finds out what it was.

Traditional gaúcho rules don't allow face-down cards. A player who doesn't want to stay in the hand drops out instead: they leave the hand, and their partner plays on. If the whole team drops out, the other team scores what the hand is worth, plus 1 if no card had been played yet and envido could still be called.

Regional variations

Paulista: at many tables, the dealer's team wins a hand when all three rounds tie; under the state federation's rules, nobody scores, except in the hand of eleven.
Mineiro: truco values change from town to town, and some tables also play the hand of eleven.
Southern Brazil: in traditional gaúcho tournaments, a 24-point game has two halves of 12 points, the malos and the buenos. There's also truco de amostra, where a turned-up card creates new top cards.
Argentina: games go to 15 or 30 points, and many tables play without flor.
Uruguay: truco is mostly played with a muestra, a turned-up card that creates the piezas, cards that beat the fixed top cards.

Tips for beginners

Learn the top cards of the style you're playing before you sit down: that's the first thing that changes from region to region.
Save your best card for the right moment. Winning the first round with a middle card already puts your team ahead.
Call truco with weak cards now and then. If you only call with a good hand, you're easy to read.
Check the score before you accept: folding to a truco costs little, but losing a hand that's been raised to six costs a lot.

On Selminha.com

The rules in Truco on Selminha.com

Truco on the site is played by invitation: the host sends the link, and the first three people to open it take a seat. Anyone who arrives later can watch.

Style: The host chooses: Paulista (with a turn-up card, to 12), Mineiro (fixed top cards, to 12) or Argentine (fixed top cards, with envido and flor, to 24). Paulista follows the Federação Paulista de Truco rules; Argentine follows the traditional gaúcho truco rulebook from southern Brazil, which is very close to Argentine truco; Mineiro, which has no official rulebook, follows the most common rules. The top cards are the ones described above. Hands are worth 1 in Paulista (truco 3, six 6, nine 9, twelve 12), 2 in Mineiro (truco 4, six 6, ten 10, twelve 12) and 1 in Argentine (truco 2, retruco 3, vale cuatro 4).
Deck and direction: A 40-card deck with French suits. In the Argentine style, spades, clubs, hearts and diamonds stand in for swords, clubs, cups and coins. Play goes to the right (counterclockwise), and the deal moves one seat to the right every hand. The host deals the first hand.
Tied rounds: If the first round ties, the second decides; if the second or third ties, the team that won the first wins the hand; if the first two tie, the third decides. If all three tie: in Paulista and Mineiro, nobody scores; in the Argentine style, the team that led the hand wins. After a tied round, the player who put down the first of the two tying cards leads the next round; in the Argentine style, the player who led the tied round does. In Paulista, the two state federation rules described above also apply: the hand of eleven with three tied rounds and the exposed-card rule.
Calls: Tap TRUCO to make the call; as the stakes go up, the button shows the next call (SIX, NINE, TEN, TWELVE, RETRUCO or VALE CUATRO, depending on the style). In Paulista and Mineiro, you call on your turn, before you play; in the Argentine style, you can call at any time, even when it isn't your turn. The next opponent answers I ACCEPT or FOLD (QUIERO or NO QUIERO in the Argentine style), or raises. A raise also accepts the previous call, and the team that made that call answers it. Once a call is accepted, only the team that accepted it can make the next one.
Hand of eleven, hand of ten and iron hand: Paulista: at 11 points, the partners see each other's cards, and the one who plays first for the team chooses PLAY (the hand is worth 3, with no truco calls) or FOLD (the other team scores 1). Mineiro: the same at 10 points, worth 4 (folding gives the other team 2). Iron hand, with both teams one hand from winning: everyone plays blind, and the hand is worth 3 in Paulista and 4 in Mineiro.
Envido and flor: Only in the Argentine style. On your turn in the first round, before you play your card, tap ENVIDO. When the other team calls the first truco, the player answering can tap ENVIDO FIRST, and their partner, if they haven't played a card yet, can tap ENVIDO, as long as the truco hasn't been accepted. The other team answers QUIERO or NO QUIERO, or raises with ENVIDO (once), REAL ENVIDO (more than once, if they like) or FALTA ENVIDO, in that order. Falta envido is worth what the leading team still needs to reach 24, and a tie goes to the team that led the hand. The game calls flor automatically at the start of the hand. When both teams have flor, the first player with flor on the second team answers with FLOR, CONTRAFLOR, CONTRAFLOR AL RESTO or CON FLOR ME ACHICO, and nobody plays until they answer. To a contraflor, the player who called the first flor answers QUIERO or NO QUIERO. Envido points, a lone flor, CON FLOR ME ACHICO and a declined contraflor go on the scoreboard right away, and a team that reaches the target with them wins on the spot. When the flors are compared (FLOR, or an accepted CONTRAFLOR or CONTRAFLOR AL RESTO), the points are scored at the end of the hand.
Face down and dropping out: In Paulista and Mineiro, from the second round on, the FACE DOWN button makes your next card go face down. It's worth nothing in the round, and nobody sees what it was. There are no face-down cards in the iron hand. In the Argentine style, the DROP OUT button takes its place, on your turn when no call is pending (in the first round, while ENVIDO is in that spot, DROP OUT is in the RESIGN box): you leave the hand and your partner plays on; if the whole team drops out, the other team scores what the hand is worth, plus 1 if no card had been played yet and envido could still be called.
Signals: The host chooses whether signals are allowed. With signals on, the SIGNAL button secretly tells your partner your best card, like ZAP or A THREE. Only your partner sees it. The button doesn't appear when your partner is a bot or during the iron hand.
End of the hand: The END OF HAND box shows how the hand ended, who scored and how many points, plus any envido or flor. The next hand starts when any player taps or clicks NEXT HAND.
Teams and rematch: With all four seated, the host picks a partner. At the end, if all four agree, the rematch happens at the same table, with the same teams or new ones.
Bots: Before the game starts, the host can fill empty seats with bots: Carmen, Tito and Luna. They only see their own cards, call truco, bluff now and then, accept, fold and raise, and in the Argentine style they call and answer envido. They always accept a rematch. With signals on, a bot partnered with a person sends an honest signal at the start of every hand.
Time and absence: The table is saved on the site, and nobody has to be online at the same time. If the player whose turn it is goes more than 48 hours without acting, the other team can end the game and take the win. If a player taps RESIGN or leaves the table mid-game, their team loses. A table with no moves for 7 days expires.
Chat: The four seated players can chat in writing in the table chat. Spectators can read it but can't post.

There's no leaderboard and no points on the site: the result only counts at that table. Each player picks the card design they see, and that doesn't change any rule.

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