Brelan
A French vying game from the 15th–19th centuries, played with three cards and a card turned from the deck — a key link in the chain leading to Bouillotte and Poque.
Coming soon — not yet playable
Rules
Brelan was played by two to five players, each dealt three cards from a short (24- or 32-card) pack, with one additional card turned face up from the remaining stock to be shared by everyone as a helper card.
Players bet in rounds on the strength of their three-card hand (plus the shared turned card), with the option to raise or fold rather than reveal a weak hand — the same core vying structure later poker games inherited. The best possible hand was a "brelan carré," effectively four of a kind, made using the shared turned card alongside three matching cards in hand.
Historical note: Brelan is cited by gaming historians as a direct ancestor of Bouillotte (also in this library), and its name lives on today as the modern French term for three-of-a-kind in poker hand rankings.
Strategy notes: Because one card was shared by the whole table, hand strength was partly public information, making the betting itself — reading how confident opponents were about a card everyone could see — closer to modern poker's bluffing dynamic than pure luck.
Common house rules
Shared card changes each round
Since the helper card was reshuffled and re-turned for each new deal, its rank shifted what hands were achievable round to round — worth tracking if reviving this game today.
Short deck required
Most reconstructions use a 32-card piquet deck (7 through Ace) rather than a full 52-card deck to match the historical card pool.
Treat as a reference point
As with other centuries-old games in this library, exact regional rule variations aren't fully standardized in surviving sources — this is best understood as a historical touchstone for where 'brelan' (three of a kind) entered poker vocabulary.
Related games
Based on shared category, origin, and rules that reference each other.
Bouillotte
A high-stakes French vying game that emerged during the Revolutionary era, played with a stripped 20-card deck and believed to have shaped the early French form of Poque.
Learn the rules →Poque
The 17th-18th century French bluffing and betting game most often credited as the direct namesake and ancestor of the English word 'poker.'
Learn the rules →Gilet
An even older ancestor than Primero, referenced by Rabelais in 1534 — a three-card vying game that evolved into Brelan under the reign of Charles IX.
Learn the rules →Ambigu
A French vying game first recorded in 1659 under Louis XIV, blending elements of Whist, Bouillotte, and Piquet, with hand categories that closely parallel modern poker rankings.
Learn the rules →