Titro — Rules of Play

1. Components

• 1 tarot deck (78 cards).
• Optionally, a simpler and shorter version can be played with a standard 52 card deck (jokers included! The joker is considered suitless and value 0.)

2. Setup

• Shuffle the deck.
• Each player draws 5 cards for their hand.
• Place 3 cards face-down between the players.

3. Terminology

• Spread: the three cards between the two players
• Center: the middle card, face-up at the start of the round.
• Cloak: the card on your right. You may look at it. (Your cloak is your opponent’s blind.)
• Blind: the card on your left. You may not look at it. (Your blind is your opponent’s cloak.)

4. Round Structure

Each round has four phases -- two bidding phases and two cleanup phases.

Phase 1

1. Flip the Center face-up.
2. Each player secretly selects 1 card from their hand and places it as a bid on any of the three positions (Center, Cloak, or Blind).
3. Both players reveal their first bids simultaneously.

Phase 2

1. Flip over the Cloak and Blind so all 3 cards in the spread are visible to both players.
2. Each player places a second bid on one of the two spread cards they did not bid on in Phase 1.
   • Contesting your opponent’s card is allowed.
3. Both bids are revealed simultaneously.

Phase 3

1. Bids are resolved according to the rules outlined in Resolving Bids.
2. If there is a split (see below for what a split is), the splitting player chooses a bid to steal.

Phase 4

1. Each player chooses whether to discard each card they won, or keep it in their hand for next round.
2. Score totals are updated according to the results of the bids.
3. Each player draws back up to 5 cards.
4. Bidding cards or unwon cards are discarded, and the spread is repopulated with 3 face-down cards.

5. Resolving Bids

The card the player bids on is called the "target". The card the player is bidding with is called the "bidding card".

1. Fool rule: If a Fool is bid, it automatically loses, even uncontested. (In the 52 card variant, this instead applies to the Joker.)
2. Suit match: If one bidding card matches the target’s suit, it beats a non-matching card.
3. Rank: Higher bidding card value wins if both match or both don’t match.
4. Tie: No one wins the target.

Scoring: The winner of a bid earns points = absolute difference between the values of their bidding card and the target.

6. The Split

• If a player’s total round score is 0 while their opponent has more than 0:
  • That player performs a Split.
  • The splitting player chooses one bid their opponent won this round and steals it.
  • They gain the points from that bid instead.

7. After the Round

• Each player may keep one or both of the bids they won (or stole) and add the target to their hand. A player can also choose not to do this and discard these cards.
• All other center cards go to the discard pile.
• Each player draws from the deck until they have 5 cards again.

8. Game Length

• The game ends after the 9th full round is played (6 rounds with a 52 card deck).

9. Victory

• At the end of the final round, the player with the highest total score wins Titro.