How to play Call Break

By Ari Hlynsson · 1 player vs computer, or 4 online · Updated 11 September 2026

Call the number of tricks you will take, then take at least that many. A made call scores the call itself plus a tenth of a point a trick over; a missed call loses the call, and the highest score at the end of the deal wins.

The rules, step by step

1. 1

   The whole deck is dealt, thirteen cards each, to four players. There are no partnerships: each seat plays for itself and is scored on its own.

2. 2

   Starting with the seat after the dealer, each player calls in turn the number of tricks they expect to take, from one to eight. The calls are public and cannot be changed.

3. 3

   The seat that called first leads the first trick, with any card at all. Spades may be led at any time; there is no rule about breaking them.

4. 4

   If you hold a card of the suit led you must play one, and if any of yours would beat the highest card of that suit on the table, you must play one of those. A lower card is allowed only when none of yours can win.

5. 5

   If you have no card of the suit led, you must play a spade if one of yours would take the trick, which means beating any spade already played. If none of yours can, you may play anything, a low spade included.

6. 6

   The highest spade in a trick wins it; with no spade, the highest card of the suit led. The winner leads the next. After thirteen tricks, each seat scores its call if it made it, plus a tenth for every trick over, or loses the call if it did not.

Tips that change how you play

• Count the tricks you cannot avoid, not the tricks you hope for. An ace in a suit you hold is a trick because the rules will make you play it the moment that suit is led. A king behind an unplayed ace usually is not.
• Length in spades is worth calling on. After three rounds of trumps the other hands are usually bare, and your fourth and fifth spades are tricks however small they are, because nobody can beat them.
• Once your call is made, lead low. Extra tricks are worth a tenth apiece, which is nothing next to the whole call you would lose by being made to win a trick you did not want in a suit where you are now the only one with cards.

Calling a hand you will be made to win with

You pick up the ace and four of hearts, the king, queen and seven of diamonds, five spades to the queen, and three small clubs. Start with what the rules will force on you. The ace of hearts is a trick the moment hearts are led, and you cannot decline it. The king of diamonds is close to one: it loses only to the ace, and with the queen behind it the suit is worth a trick and probably two. Five spades is length. After three rounds of trumps the other three hands hold at most six spades between them, and your fourth and fifth are tricks nobody can beat. That is one, one, and two: four. The queen of spades and the second diamond honour may each win as well, and they are your tenths, not your call. Call four. Take six and score four point two. Call six and take five, and the same thirteen cards score minus six, a difference of ten points on one decision.

Mistakes that cost beginners the game

Calling the hand as if you could choose when to win.

You cannot. If the ace of hearts is led and you hold the king, you keep it; if the four of hearts is led and you hold the king, you must play it and take the trick. Call for the tricks the rules will hand you, then add the ones you can genuinely engineer, and stop.

Discarding a plain card when a spade would have won the trick.

That is not a choice the rules give you. Void in the suit led and holding a spade that beats the trick, you must play the spade. The table refuses the discard, and the useful habit is to look at your spades before you look at your discards whenever a suit you lack is led.

Leading an ace late in the deal.

By the ninth or tenth trick somebody is void in almost every suit, and an ace led into a void is an ace trumped. Lead your aces early, while everybody still has to follow, and lead your long suit later when a trump on it costs the trumper more than it costs you.

Common questions about Call Break