The French Game of “Poque”

Of all the European card games that preceded poker, the French game of poque is probably the closest relative. The game initially surfaces during the 16th century, and for a few reasons is usually held up as the immediate precursor to poker.

For one, poque was actually brought to America by French settlers, including in areas of the Louisiana Territory where poker would first emerge in the early 1800s. Like the German game of poch, the name also resembles the name for poker, and many have speculated an Englished pronunciation of the word incorrectly emphasizing the second syllable provided a basis for the name.

Poque itself has a few precursors, among them glic (dating from the 15th century), brélan (first turning up around the 17th century), and bouillotte (from the 18th century). While glic is a lot more like the German game of poch and other similar games -- that was the three-phase game with the round board and nine cups -- both brélan and bouillotte are simpler, mainly just versions of the second “vying” phase of those other games.

Variations of brélan and bouillotte exist, including being played with differently-sized decks (increased sometimes to accommodate more players). For example, a game of bouillotte might have been played by four players with a 20-card deck, using just the aces, kings, queens, nines, and eights, and if there were a fifth player the jacks would be included, too, to make a 24-card deck. (Or if just three were playing, queens would be tossed and they’d use just 16 cards.) Chips (or some equivalent) were used as well for betting purposes.

Before the game began players drew cards to decide where to sit. I’ve seen some references to the game being played clockwise and others counter-clockwise -- I think the latter more likely.

Prior to the deal players would ante, then the player to the right of the dealer would have the option to raise the stakes by putting in an additional bet called a “carre” -- kind of a like a straddle, as no one has any cards yet. If that player does make a bet, the next player can fold, call, or raise and so on, meaning players can drop out of hands even before cards are dealt, if they wish.

Next comes the deal -- three cards to each player, plus one more card set face up in the middle. This last card, called the “retourné” essentially functions like a “community card” in that each player is making a four-card hand that includes the face-up card. Another round of betting follows that again somewhat resembles the betting in poker (there are some differences, but I’m glossing over them here). Once the betting is completed, players left in the hand show their cards.

When it comes to hand rankings in bouillotte, there are basically just three hand types:

brélan carré (highest) = four of a kind (including the retourné, of course)

brélan = three of a kind, all in the player’s hand (i.e., not using the retourné)

brélan favori = three of a kind, two in the player’s hand plus the retourné

After that, whoever has the most points in their hand wins, with aces worth 11 points, court cards 10, and nines and eights their numerical value. In the case of ties, suits come into play, with the suit of the retourné functioning like a trump suit and the player with the highest card in that suit winning.

That’s the game that would eventually become poque, as I understand it, although poque also existed as that three-phase game, too, apparently. Eventually only the middle “vying” game would be played, though, and bouillotte started getting called poque thanks to players using the verb “poque” to describe their betting action (“Je poque” = “I bet”).

In any case, this is the game that certainly most resembles the earliest “Old Poker” games that involved smaller deck, a single deal and round of betting, and no draw (yet).

Image: “Peasants Playing Cards” (1700s), Norbert van Bloemen, public domain

Travel Report: EPT11 Grand Final, Day 10 -- Nice Finish

Coupla young guns took down the big ones during yesterday’s climactic conclusion of the PokerStars and Monte-Carlo®Casino EPT Grand Final festival, the last EPT stop of Season 11.

Adrian Mateos won the Main and the €1,082,000 that went with it. Mateos won an Estrellas Poker Tour event at 18, the World Series of Poker Europe Main Event at 19, and now an EPT Main Event at 20. He turns 21 right before the WSOP Main Event this year. Charlie Carrel won the €25K High Roller, earning an even bigger prize of €1,114,000. Already an formidable online whiz, Carrel just turned 21 last November.

I spent the day riding out some of the last of the many side events helping making up the 78-tourney sked, including a fairly intriguing €10K Turbo. In that one both Scott Seiver and Dzmitry Urbanovich went deep (again), but Igor Yaroshevskyy ultimately took it down. Seiver placed fourth and Urbanovich third, with the latter sealing up the EPT Season 11 Player of the Year with that finish.

Meanwhile here this morning I finish up my travel reports from the Nice Côte d'Azur International Airport. During these last two weeks we crossed back and forth to Nice several times for dinners, that picture above being right around the border. We’d answer the question “Where are you going for dinner?” with “France.”

The Nice airport is, well, nice, although nearly everything is closed at this early hour. Birds chirp away in the rafters here in the terminal into which the rising sun, still low on the horizon, shines blindingly to make passengers shun the seats facing in that direction.

Speaking of horizons, the WSOP will be coming up soon and indeed a lot of the talk near the end of the festival was about expectations there. Going to both the PCA and EPT Grand Final this year might have affected my perspective somewhat, but I find myself thinking more and more of the EPTs as the “major league” of tournament poker (at least from a global perspective), while the WSOP -- though obviously still the “sun” of the tourney calendar around which all else revolves -- signifies differently.

The announcement this week of the WSOP Europe schedule -- happening in Berlin this time in October -- didn’t seem to be greeted with that much response, and I’ve already heard some talking about EPT Malta (with which it’ll run up against) being a preferred destination then. (I refer, of course, to those who actually have a choice between the two.)

Still, I am looking forward to seeing how things play out in LV. As I sit here amid the chirping birds and rattling of storefronts beginning to open, I miss my LAPT friends down in Panama where that Main Event just got going yesterday.

But I’ve been missing even more Vera and our four-legged friends, where I’m excited to be galloping in later today. Find myself thinking of this song for some reason, even if I’ve been in Monaco, not “Paree” -- and even though I can’t wait to get back on the farm:

Travel Report: 2013 EPT Deauville Main Event, Day 1b

Have quickly slipped back into the familiar work routine here in Deauville, where this year’s PokerStars.fr EPT Deauville Main Event is now in full swing.

Yesterday’s second and last Day 1 flight saw 475 players come out after 307 participated on Sunday. That total of 782 is down a bit from the 889 who played in the event last year. I think coming right on the heels of both the PCA and Aussie Millions likely keeps a few folks from trekking over to Europe who might play otherwise, but it’s still a healthy number with a big €770,000 first prize awaiting the winner.

These first two days added up to about 14-hour workdays, all told, although it’s likely we’ll have a few shorter days during the week as the tourney is scheduled to continue all of the way through Saturday. Am hopeful that means there will be some chances to get out a bit for some dining and perhaps even a promenade or two to do some sight-seeing before it’s all over.

I’ve mentioned before how this marks a kind of return trip for me as I lived in the north of France before many years ago (in Lille). Was kind of transported the day of my arrival when I spent a little bit of time walking up and down the street on which the hotel is located, including visiting the Carrefour to stock up on a few supplies for the week.

As I did I remembered vividly that year in Lille and the many trips to the supermarket, including the much bigger Carrefour down near the city center -- kind of a Walmart-like place where you could buy groceries as well as clothes, household items, and so on. I remembered to bring my own bag and bag my items. I also remembered the intermingling smells of freshly baked bread, fish sitting out in the open, and the various cheeses of the French supermarkets.

Speaking of being possessed by memories, I’m realizing now that I’m here how Deauville (along with couple of other coastal cities, Cabourg and Trouville), provided inspiration to Marcel Proust in his seven-volume À la recherche du temps perdu, specifically as the basis for the fictional seaside town of Balbec. I only made it through Swann’s Way in college, and so now am once again having those one-day-I’ll-really-read-Proust thoughts, thinking perhaps I’ll have to return to those volumes in earnest sooner than later.

And with regard to literature of a different sort, reading online I’m seeing references to Ian Fleming’s first James Bond novel Casino Royale and how the casino in that book was likely patterned after one in Deauville where the writer had played baccarat and other games. That’s another book I’ve never read and so am now intrigued to do so.

But there’ll be time for reading later as there’s a bit more writing to get done this week. And gathering of new memories, I imagine.

For reports from the floor and tourney tracking, hop over to our PokerNews live blog for continued Main Event coverage, with reports from the High Roller coming as well later in the week. Also be sure to click over to the PokerStars blog where Howard Swains, Stephen Bartley, and Rick Dacey are finding various stories to tell in feature pieces along the way. And also enjoy perusing Neil Stoddart’s photos on both blogs (a sample of which appears up above).

Finally, for those in a hurry, Kristy Arnett and the PokerNews video team put together a quick tour. There’s a très rapide Shamus cameo at 0:34. Oh, and pardon the French...

Playing in Different Languages

Looking at spending some more time in airports and traveling around here in the near future.

First up this week is a short trip back up to the New England area with Vera for a couple of days, during which stretch we may make a quick visit to NYC for the first time in a while. Then later this week I’ll be tripping over the Atlantic to join the crew helping cover the EPT Deauville event in France.

I’ve mentioned here a few times before how Vera and I spent a year living in France some time back. We lived in Lille (in the north, near Belgium), which isn’t that far from Deauville (still the north, but on the west side).

French is actually the only foreign language I’ve ever seriously studied, other than Latin (which doesn’t really come up so often). I can muddle through an article written in French or kinda sorta follow a television program or movie. During our year there I could sometimes even follow a conversation if the speakers weren’t talking too fast. Thus was I able at least to get what I needed at the tabac or pâtisserie, although I remember usually having to repeat myself a few times.

I can’t really claim to have learned the language, and a lot of the time my trying to speak or follow others felt a little like playing a game. Thankfully Vera is fluent, and so more often than not that year she would be speaking for me.

It was a fun year we had in France. We were in graduate school at the time, and I was pretending to work on a dissertation but in fact spent the time writing most of what became the first draft of Same Difference. Meanwhile Vera taught at the university and I was essentially a house husband, a job which I recommend highly.

Whenever I’ve traveled on any of these other poker-related trips and find myself in non-English speaking countries, my first instinct is to think of French words and phrases even though the language spoken in these places hasn’t been French (except in Morocco, here and there). I suppose that’s a fairly common experience -- that is, when in a foreign land, involuntarily thinking of the only foreign language one knows even though doing so is of no particular use.

Such an instinct might apply when being exposed to new poker games. You have a “native” game (say, no-limit hold’em). Then you try to play a new game (say, pot-limit Omaha or fixed limit HE) and your first instinct there might be to “speak” or pursue strategies learned in your native game. Eventually you discover those strategies don’t work so well and you begin to learn that second game.

Anyhow, the phenomenon I’m describing would surface when you move on to try still more games. Say you started with NLHE, then learned limit hold’em. Then you moved on to try stud, and initially find yourself “speaking” LHE until you start figuring out the significant differences between those two games.

Perhaps the games have something in common (e.g., stud and LHE both featuring fixed limit betting) that help you a little, just as I might hear some Spanish words when I’m in Lima that resemble French enough to seem familiar. But eventually if you really want to “communicate” in that game you have to learn its special “language.”

Anyhow, like I say I’m most looking forward to my upcoming voyage back to France. It will be fun going back and being reminded of things I experienced before.

Indeed, I’m sure to experience a lot of déjà vu.