Bulgarian belot practice
Learn belot from a tournament winner's deals
A player who has won many tournaments and made belot his main source of income records real deals and writes down why he made every important move. You take his seat, see only your own cards and decide for yourself. Then you find out what he played and why.
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How the practice works
- You sit in the expert's seat. You see your five cards for the bidding, then your whole hand. The other three hands stay face down, as they would at a real table.
- You decide at every move that offers a choice. A bid, a pass, a double or a card: the choice is yours. Moves with nothing to think about play themselves.
- You compare at once. You see what the expert played and, where he left a note, why he played it.
- The deal goes on with his moves. So your next decision comes in the same position he faced.
What your profile shows
Your profile counts only your first attempt at each decision, so the percentage measures how you play, not how often you retried. It also shows your success on the moves the expert marked as turning points, and a breakdown by kind of decision: bidding, leading to a trick and following to one.
Deals you got wrong stay on a "To fix" list. Play them again until you get through without a miss.
Why learn from a person and not a program
We tried a program first. We wrote a solver that plays belot with every hand face up and works out the expected points of each move. Where belot is hardest, it has nothing to say: it cannot value what a card tells your partner, because when every card is visible there is nothing left to tell.
Signalling to your partner, reading the opponents' hands and holding back your trumps are a player's knowledge. So every decision here is graded by someone who makes a living at this game, and explained in his own words.
Questions
Do I need to know the rules?
Yes. The practice assumes you already know how the game is played. If you want a refresher, the rules of Bulgarian belot are on one page: cards, bidding, declarations and scoring.
Which belot is it?
Bulgarian belot: 32 cards, two against two, first to 151, under the standard rules.
Does it work on a phone?
Yes. It is built for the phone first and can be added to your home screen like an app.
How do I sign in?
With your Google or Facebook account. Your profile is created the first time you sign in, with no form and no password.