Sueca Rules: How to Play the Portuguese Card Game
Sueca is the card game of Portugal. Ask anyone from Lisbon to the Azores what they played at the kitchen table on a Sunday afternoon and the answer will very often be this one: four players, two partnerships, forty cards and a single number to chase — sixty-one. It is a trick-taking game in the same family as Belote and Briscola, but stripped down to almost nothing. There is no bidding, no declaring, no melds and no wild cards. You follow suit if you can, you try to win the tricks that carry points, and after ten tricks you add up what your side captured.
That austerity is exactly why it survives. A hand of Sueca takes a few minutes, the rules fit on the back of an envelope, and yet the game rewards memory, nerve and a good sense of when to throw a card away. The two cards that decide most hands are the Ace and the 7, and knowing that they are the top two cards in the deck — ahead of the King — is the single most important thing a newcomer has to absorb.
This guide covers the forty-card deck and the Sueca ranking, the deal and how trump is fixed by the last card, the exact obligation to follow suit, how tricks are won, the 120-point scoring system and the tie rule that doubles the next game. It ends with the strategy points that separate players who merely know the rules from players who win, plus the Portuguese vocabulary you will hear across the table.
The Sueca deck: forty cards and four suits
Sueca is played with a forty-card deck, which is a standard fifty-two-card pack with the 8s, 9s and 10s removed. That leaves ten cards in each of the four suits: Ace, King, Queen, Jack, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3 and 2. Nothing else is taken out, and no jokers are used.
Portuguese players normally use a Portuguese-suited deck — the suits are ouros (coins), copas (cups), espadas (swords) and paus (clubs) — and the court cards carry the familiar Iberian names: ás, rei, dama and valete. If you only have an international deck, the mapping is direct: diamonds for ouros, hearts for copas, spades for espadas and clubs for paus. The suits have no ranking among themselves; only the ranks inside a suit matter.
Because the eights, nines and tens are gone, the deck is unusually top-heavy. Half the cards in your hand are worth nothing at all, and the whole game is built around the handful that are.
Card ranking and point values
This is the table worth memorising before you sit down. In Sueca the Ace is the highest card in its suit and also the most valuable, and the 7 is the second highest — it outranks the King, the Queen and the Jack. That second fact is what makes Sueca distinct from its neighbours: in Briscola and in Tute, the 3 is the card that sits just behind the Ace, and in most French-suited games the 7 is worth nothing at all.
The five lowest cards in each suit — 6, 5, 4, 3 and 2 — are worth zero points, but they are not useless. They are the cards you use to follow suit, to duck a trick, or to force the opponent into an awkward position.
| Card | Ranking (high to low) | Point value |
|---|---|---|
| Ace (ás) | 1st — highest | 11 |
| 7 | 2nd | 10 |
| King (rei) | 3rd | 4 |
| Queen (dama) | 4th | 3 |
| Jack (valete) | 5th | 2 |
| 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 | 6th to 10th | 0 each |
The deal and how the trump suit is chosen
Sueca is a partnership game for four players. You sit opposite your partner, so the two teams are interleaved around the table. The deck is shuffled and each player receives ten cards, dealt in the usual way, one at a time.
Trump is not bid for and not chosen by anyone. After the cards are dealt, the dealer turns over the last card of the deck — the one sitting at the bottom of the undealt pile — and its suit becomes the trump suit for the whole hand. That turned card is the trump indicator, and the dealer keeps it as part of their own hand once everyone has seen it. There is no decision to make and no way to influence it, which is one reason a Sueca hand starts so quickly.
Play moves counter-clockwise, and the first card is led by the player sitting to the dealer’s right. If you have played Belote or most other trick games, this is worth flagging: the lead passes the opposite way from what you may be used to, and the dealer leads last rather than first.
Following suit and winning a trick
Each trick is a single card from each player, and the rules about what you may play are short:
- If you hold a card in the suit that was led, you must play one. You are not obliged to play your highest or your lowest — any card of that suit will do — but you cannot play a different suit.
- If you have no card in the led suit, you are free. You may play anything you like: a card from another plain suit, or a trump. There is no obligation to trump, and no obligation to beat the cards already on the table.
- When all four cards are down, the trick is decided by trump first. If one or more trumps were played, the highest trump wins. If no trump was played, the highest card of the led suit wins.
- The winner of the trick gathers the four cards, places them face down in front of them as part of their team’s pile, and leads the next trick.
- A hand runs for exactly ten tricks, because every card is played. When the ten tricks are finished, the cards are counted.
Scoring: 120 points and the race to 61
Sueca is scored on card points, not on tricks. Winning a trick only matters because of what was inside it, and a trick made of three low cards and a 2 is worth exactly nothing. Add up the values of every card in the deck and you get 120 points, so the arithmetic of a hand is simple: whoever holds more than half of those points wins.
Each team counts the points in the cards it captured, and only those points. The target is 61 or more. A team that captures 61 points or more wins the hand; a team that is held to 60 or fewer loses it.
There is one special case. If the two teams capture exactly 60 points each, the hand is a draw, and the next hand is played with the score doubled. That rule is why a team sitting on a narrow lead will sometimes play to hold rather than to win — and why a 60–60 hand is remembered long after it is over.
Reading a hand: what to watch for
Because the deck is only forty cards and every card is played, a Sueca hand is more transparent than it first appears. Once you have seen a suit led a few times you can usually work out how much of it is still out, and the trumps are countable in the same way.
Two cards dominate the whole hand. The Ace of trumps and the 7 of trumps are worth 21 points between them — nearly a fifth of the deck’s value in two cards. If they fall to the same team, that team is already a long way towards the 61 it needs, and the other side has to scramble for every remaining point.
The other thing to track is the trump indicator itself. Because the dealer turns a card to fix the suit and then keeps it, everyone at the table knows that one trump is in the dealer’s hand from the start. Counting that card into your picture of how many trumps remain is a small habit that pays off constantly.
Sueca strategy: the five habits that win hands
Sueca has very few rules but a great deal of nuance. These are the points that come up hand after hand.
- Count the trumps from the first trick. With ten trumps in the deck and one of them visible as the turned card, you can keep an accurate tally of how many are left. Whoever holds trump length controls the hand, because they can win a trick whenever they choose.
- Do not waste a trump on a worthless trick. Trumps are the only cards that beat everything, and spending one to take three low cards is usually a bad trade. Hold them for the tricks that carry an Ace or a 7.
- Lead through strength, not into it. Leading a suit lets the player after you take the trick cheaply if they hold the top card. If a defender is sitting behind a strong hand, leading low cards at them is often the way to make them spend their winners.
- Give your partner a signal with what you play. Since you must follow suit, the card you choose inside that suit is the only information you can pass. Playing your highest card of a suit you cannot win tells your partner you are out of strength there; a low card says you may still hold something.
- Count to 61, not to ten tricks. Winning tricks is only a means to an end. Halfway through a hand, add up roughly what your side has taken and what is still available; if you are close to 61, start playing safe, and if you are far behind, take risks you would otherwise avoid.
Variants and regional house rules
Sueca is played all over Portugal and its islands, and a few local forms are worth knowing about before you sit down with strangers.
- Sueca de Parceiros. Instead of fixed partnerships, the partner is decided by a bid or by who holds a particular card, and the two players who are not partners play against the pair. This changes the game considerably, because you do not know from the start whose interests match yours.
- Sueca ao Centro. Trump is decided by a card turned in the middle of the table rather than by the last card of the deck, which removes the small piece of information the dealer’s kept card otherwise gives away.
- Target scores. Casual games are often played to a fixed number of hands, or to a running score where the first side to reach a set total wins the match. Agree the format before the first deal, since the tie rule and the doubling that follows it can otherwise be applied inconsistently.
How to play
- Take a forty-card deck — a standard pack with the 8s, 9s and 10s removed — and shuffle. Sit opposite your partner so the two teams alternate around the table.
- Deal ten cards to each player, one at a time, until the deck is exhausted.
- Turn over the last card of the deck. Its suit becomes trump for the hand, and the dealer adds that card to their own hand.
- The player to the dealer’s right leads the first trick. Play then continues counter-clockwise.
- Follow suit if you can. If you hold no card of the led suit, play anything you like, including a trump.
- When four cards are down, the highest trump wins; if no trump was played, the highest card of the led suit wins. The winner leads the next trick.
- Play all ten tricks. Each team collects the cards it captured in its own face-down pile.
- Count the card points each team captured. The side with 61 or more wins the hand; 60–60 is a draw and doubles the next hand.
Strategy
- Treat the Ace and the 7 of trumps as the hand’s two prizes. Together they are 21 points, so a trick containing both is worth more than a fifth of the deck. Plan the hand around who is likely to capture them.
- Keep a running count of trumps. Ten exist, and the turned card tells you where one of them starts. Once you know how many are left and roughly who holds them, you know who controls the hand.
- Do not spend trump on empty tricks. A trump used to take three low cards is a trump you will not have when an Ace or a 7 appears. Save them for the tricks that carry points.
- Use your low cards as ammunition. The 2s, 3s and 4s cannot win anything, but they follow suit, and every low card you can throw away is a turn where you are not forced to break up a good holding.
- Play to the score, not to the trick count. Mid-hand, estimate whether your side is on course for 61. Ahead, play safely and avoid risky trump leads; behind, you have to gamble, because a safe loss and a reckless loss score the same.
Frequently Asked Questions
- How do you play Sueca?
- Four players in two partnerships use a forty-card deck. Each player is dealt ten cards, the last card of the deck is turned to set trump, and the player to the dealer’s right leads. You must follow suit if you can; otherwise you may play anything, including a trump. The highest trump wins a trick, or the highest card of the led suit if no trump was played. The first team to capture 61 or more of the deck’s 120 points wins the hand.
- What is the highest card in Sueca?
- The Ace. It is both the highest card in its suit and the most valuable, worth 11 points. The King, Queen and Jack all rank below the 7.
- Is the 7 really the second highest card in Sueca?
- Yes, and this is the rule that catches out players coming from other games. In Sueca the order is Ace, 7, King, Queen, Jack, then 6 down to 2. In Briscola and Tute the 3 is the second highest card instead, so the two games look similar but play very differently.
- How many points do you need to win at Sueca?
- Sixty-one. The whole deck contains 120 points, so the winning team needs more than half. Capturing 60 points or fewer loses the hand, and an exact 60–60 split is a draw that doubles the score in the next hand.
- How is the trump suit decided in Sueca?
- Nobody chooses it. After the ten cards each have been dealt, the dealer turns over the last card of the deck and its suit becomes trump. The dealer then keeps that card in hand, so one trump is known to be in the dealer’s possession from the start.
- Do you have to follow suit in Sueca?
- Yes, if you hold a card in the suit that was led you must play one of that suit. You may choose any card of that suit, high or low. If you have none, you are free to play any card you like, including a trump, and you are never obliged to beat the cards already on the table.
- What does “sueca” mean in Portuguese?
- The word means “Swedish”, and the name reflects the game’s foreign origin rather than anything Swedish about how it is played. In Portugal it is simply the country’s national card game, played in four-player partnerships with a forty-card deck.
- What is the difference between Sueca and Briscola?
- Both are forty-card trick-taking games with an Ace worth 11, but the ranking differs: Sueca puts the 7 second, while Briscola puts the 3 second and makes the 7 worthless. Sueca is played by four players in partnerships with trump fixed by a turned card; Briscola is usually a two-player game with trump drawn from the stock.