How to play botifarra? The rules of the Catalan card game, step by step
Botifarra rules from scratch. Card values, trumps, doubling, following suit, beating and trumping, and how a hand is scored, with example tricks.
Botifarra.app team14 min read
How do you play botifarra? It's a game for four players in two partnerships sitting opposite each other, played with the 48-card Spanish deck. Each player gets 12 cards, the dealer picks trumps (or lets their partner pick), the hand is played over 12 tricks, and the pair that takes more than 36 of the 72 points in the hand scores the difference. The first pair to reach 101 points wins the game.
That's the short version. Below you'll find all the botifarra rules in the order they happen at the table, with real card examples, because botifarra is easiest to understand when you see it. We keep the Catalan words that players use at the table, like manilla or contrar, and explain each one the first time it comes up.
How to play botifarra, step by step
Every hand follows the same six steps:
- Deal: all 48 cards, 12 to each player.
- Choose trumps: the dealer names the trump suit, or calls botifarra (no trumps), or passes the choice to their partner.
- Double: the opponents may contrar (double, ×2); the side that chose may recontrar (redouble, ×4); and the opponents may answer with Sant Vicenç (×8).
- Play 12 tricks: the player to the dealer's right leads, and everyone must follow suit, beat and trump when the rules say so.
- Count: each pair adds up the points of the cards it has won plus 1 point per trick. Only a pair with more than 36 scores.
- Deal again, until one pair reaches 101 points.
What botifarra is and who plays it
Botifarra is the Catalan card game: the one played after a long lunch, at the local club or with the same group of friends every week. It is played by four people in two pairs. Your partner sits opposite you, and the two opponents sit on either side. Partnerships stay the same for the whole game: you win or lose together. For a shorter introduction to the game and the app, see what botifarra is and what you can do on Botifarra.app.
A game is made up of several hands (mans). Each hand has 12 tricks. A trick, called a basa in Catalan, is one round in which everyone plays a card and one of the four cards takes the other three. Whoever wins a trick leads to the next one.
The deck and what each card is worth
Botifarra uses the 48-card Spanish deck: four suits, coins (oros), cups (copes), swords (espases) and clubs (bastos), each with twelve cards numbered 1 to 12. There are no queens: the face cards are the jack (sota, the 10), the knight (cavall, the 11) and the king (rei, the 12). Botifarra plays with every card, the 8s and 9s included.
Here comes the first surprise if you know other card games: the strongest card isn't the ace, but the 9, which is called the manilla. This is the ranking within each suit, from strongest to weakest:
Only five cards in each suit are worth points. The rest (8 down to 2) are worth nothing, but they win tricks and, above all, save you from having to throw away your good cards.
| Card | Example | Points |
|---|---|---|
| Manilla (the 9) |  | 5 |
| Ace (the 1) |  | 4 |
| King (the 12) |  | 3 |
| Knight (the 11) |  | 2 |
| Jack (the 10) |  | 1 |
| 8 down to 2 |  | 0 |
Where do the 72 points in each hand come from? Each suit holds 15 points in cards (5 + 4 + 3 + 2 + 1), so 60 in the whole deck. On top of that, every trick you win is worth 1 extra point: 12 tricks, 12 points. 60 + 12 = 72. Exactly half is 36, a number you'll see a lot.
How you win a game of botifarra
The goal is to be the first pair to reach 101 points, adding up what you score hand after hand. That's the classic game (clàssica).
There is also a shorter quick game (ràpida): it's played to 51 points or 5 hands. If nobody has reached 51 after the fifth hand, the pair that's ahead wins. On Botifarra.app, a classic game lasts about 20 min on average and a quick one about 7 min.
Remember that you don't score trick by trick but hand by hand: what matters is how many points your pair takes across the 12 tricks. There's a full explanation further down, in how a hand is scored.
Dealing and who leads first
In each hand one player is the dealer: they shuffle and deal out the whole deck, 12 cards each. Nothing is left on the table and there's no stock to draw from. The dealer changes from one hand to the next.
Once the cards are dealt, everyone looks at their hand and the dealer decides on trumps (more on that next). When trumps have been chosen and the doubling is over, the player to the dealer's right leads: they play the first card of the first trick. From then on, whoever wins a trick leads to the next one.
Trumps: choose them or pass to your partner
Trumps (trumfo) is the suit that rules the hand: any trump card beats any card of another suit. If cups are trumps and coins aren't, a
The dealer looks at their 12 cards and has two options:
- Choose trumps themselves: coins, cups, swords, clubs or botifarra, which means playing with no trumps.
- Pass (delegar) to their partner. The partner then has to choose, from the same five options, botifarra included. They can't pass it back.
Passing is very common when a hand has no obvious suit. Across the more than 11,700 hands played on Botifarra.app over the last two months (mostly Solo games, with bots at the table), the dealer passed in 50% of hands.
With this hand, cups is the natural choice: you hold the two strongest cups, five cards of the suit, and the manilla of coins to win another trick. If nothing stood out, you would pass and your partner would choose based on their own cards.
What "calling botifarra" means
Choosing botifarra means there are no trumps in that hand: each trick is won by the highest card of the suit that was led, and that's it. In exchange, the hand counts double. You call it with very strong hands, full of manillas and aces, where nobody can trump your best cards.
Contrar, recontrar and Sant Vicenç: doubling the hand
Once trumps are chosen, and before anyone plays a card, it's time to double. This is how the pair that didn't choose says: "you won't make it".
- Contrar (double, ×2): either of the two opponents of the pair that chose trumps may double. The hand is now worth twice as much.
- Recontrar (redouble, ×4): if they've been doubled, the pair that chose can answer by redoubling. Now the hand is worth four times as much.
- Sant Vicenç (×8): the opponents can still answer the redouble with a Sant Vicenç, which multiplies by eight and closes the doubling.
If nobody says anything, the hand is played at ×1. Since botifarra already counts double on its own, the highest possible multiplier is ×16: botifarra with Sant Vicenç.
| Call | Who makes it | Multiplier | If it's botifarra |
|---|---|---|---|
| No call | ×1 | ×2 | |
| Contrar | An opponent of the choosing pair | ×2 | ×4 |
| Recontrar | The pair that chose | ×4 | ×8 |
| Sant Vicenç | An opponent of the choosing pair | ×8 | ×16 |
Botifarra rules for every trick: follow suit, beat, trump
Whoever leads can play any card. After that, each player plays one card in turn, and this is where the rules come in: you can't just play whatever you like. Botifarra has three obligations, and they are the heart of the game.
The trick is won by the highest trump played. If there are no trumps in it, it's won by the highest card of the suit that was led: a card from any other suit that isn't trumps never wins, however high it is.
Following suit
Coins are trumps. The opponent on your left leads the king of cups, and everyone has cups.
Nobody could trump because everyone had cups, and following suit comes first. With all four cards in cups, the ranking decides: the
Beating: going over the winning card
Clubs are trumps. Your partner leads the jack of swords and an opponent has already gone over it. You have the ace and the 4 of swords.
Your partner is no longer winning and you hold a card that wins the trick, so you have to play it. You can't keep the ace back and play the 4. But if your partner is winning, you don't need to beat:
Trumping and overtrumping: when you can't follow suit
Coins are trumps. The opponent on your left leads the ace of clubs. You don't have any clubs, but you do have trumps.
A small trump beats the best card of any other suit: that's why the 3 of coins beats the ace. And if an opponent has already trumped before you, playing any trump isn't enough: you must overtrump, playing a higher trump than theirs if you have one.
In this example you hold the ace and the 2 of coins. The 2 doesn't beat the opponent's 7; the ace does. So you have to play the ace.
Two details that often cause doubts:
- If an opponent has trumped and you have the suit that was led, you follow suit, but you don't have to beat: no card of that suit can beat a trump.
- If a trump is led, you follow with a trump, and if your partner isn't winning you must play a higher one if you have it.
Tricks in a botifarra hand
With no trumps, there's no trumping. If you can't follow suit, you play any card, but that card won't win the trick.
That's why manillas and aces matter so much in botifarra: if you hold the manilla of a suit, nobody can take it from you.
How a hand is scored
When the 12 tricks are over, each pair adds up the points of the cards it has won plus 1 point for each trick. Between the two pairs, it always comes to 72.
The multiplier comes from the doubling (×1, ×2, ×4 or ×8), and it's doubled again if the hand was played as botifarra. Either pair can score, including the one that didn't choose trumps: if the choosing pair takes 30 points, the opponents have taken 42 and they score the difference.
| Hand | Points of the winning pair | Calculation | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cups trumps, no doubling | 45 | (45 − 36) × 1 | 9 |
| Coins trumps, doubled | 45 | (45 − 36) × 2 | 18 |
| Botifarra, no doubling | 50 | (50 − 36) × 2 | 28 |
| Clubs, doubled, choosing pair loses (takes 30) | 42 | (42 − 36) × 2 | 12 |
| Botifarra with Sant Vicenç | 40 | (40 − 36) × 16 | 64 |
| Tie | 36 to 36 | Nobody gets past 36 | 0 for both |
These numbers explain why botifarra is so feared: a single hand with Sant Vicenç can turn a game to 101 upside down. They also explain why people call it. On Botifarra.app:
If one pair wins all 12 tricks, they make capot: they take all 72 points and score 36 times the multiplier. It happens very rarely.
Lliure or obligada: two ways to play
The rules above are those of lliure botifarra ("free", the western Catalan way). Obligada botifarra ("compulsory", the eastern way) keeps every one of them and adds one more, which only applies when the card you play doesn't win the trick: if your partner is winning, you must play a card that's worth points (jack, knight, king, ace or manilla) or the lowest card of the suit you're playing; if the opponents are winning, you must play the lowest. The second player in the trick, if they can't follow suit, may still load a card with points. And a card that takes the lead in the trick can always be played, even if it beats your partner. Neither version is "the right one": it depends on the region and on the table, so agree on it before you deal.
A short botifarra glossary
- Basa: a trick, one round of four cards. The strongest card takes it.
- Mà: a hand, the 12 tricks played with one deal.
- Manilla: the 9 of each suit, the strongest card and the most valuable (5 points).
- Trumfo: trumps, the suit that rules a hand. Any trump beats the cards of other suits.
- Botifarra: playing a hand with no trumps. It counts double.
- Delegar: passing the choice of trumps to your partner.
- Contrar, recontrar, Sant Vicenç: the calls that multiply the hand by 2, 4 and 8.
- Servir: following suit.
- Matar: playing a card that beats the one currently winning.
- Tallar: playing a trump when you can't follow suit.
- Sobretallar: overtrumping, going over a trump already in the trick.
- Carregar: loading points onto a trick your partner is winning.
- Capot: winning all 12 tricks of a hand.
Frequently asked questions
How many cards are dealt in botifarra?
All of them: the 48 cards of the Spanish deck, 12 per player. Nothing is left over to draw or on the table. That's why, as the hand goes on, keeping track of the cards that have been played tells you exactly which cards are still to be played.
What does contrar mean in botifarra?
Contrar means doubling. The opponents of the pair that chose trumps call it when they think that pair won't get past 36 points, and the hand becomes worth twice as much. The choosing pair can answer with a redouble (recontrar, ×4), and the opponents with a Sant Vicenç (×8), which ends the doubling.
What happens if a hand ends 36 to 36?
Nobody scores. Since a hand is worth 72 points, 36 each means neither pair got past half. Nothing goes on the scoresheet, even if the hand was doubled or played as botifarra, and the next hand is dealt.
Does the manilla beat the ace?
Yes. In botifarra the strongest card in each suit is the manilla, the 9, followed by the ace. The full ranking is 9, 1, 12, 11, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3 and 2. The manilla is also worth the most: 5 points, against the ace's 4.
When do you have to trump?
When you have no cards of the suit that was led, you do have trumps, and your partner isn't winning the trick. If an opponent has already trumped, you must play a higher trump than theirs if you have one. If your partner is winning, you don't have to trump.
Can you play botifarra with fewer than four people?
Botifarra is a game for four, in two pairs. If you're one short, or you just want to practise on your own, you can play the Solo mode on Botifarra.app (Sol in Catalan): you and a bot partner against two bots at the level you choose (Easy, Normal or Hard).