How to play Mexico
The rules used at Mexico Club. Open a section to read more.
Basics
Players: 3 players.
Deck: 32 cards (7 through Ace) in hearts, diamonds, clubs, and spades.
Goal: be the first to reach 51 points.
Card rank
When taking tricks, cards rank from strongest to weakest:
- Ace — strongest
- King
- Queen
- Jack
- 10
- 9
- 8
- 7 — weakest
Dealing
The dealer deals around the table (counter-clockwise, or as the software deals).
Each player receives 10 cards.
Talon: 2 cards are left face down in the center of the table.
Bidding
After the deal, players bid how many tricks they think they can take.
- Opening: the player on lead must bid at least 5.
- Raising: the next player may bid higher (6, 7, 8, 9) or say NEXT and drop out of this deal’s bidding.
- End: bidding continues until two players have said NEXT. The remaining highest bid wins.
- Mexico (20): commits to all 10 tricks. The talon is not taken. You still choose trump. Success scores +20.
Talon and trump
The auction winner (unless they bid Mexico) then:
- Takes the 2 talon cards and shows them to the others.
- Discards 2 cards from hand into the scrap (face down, unseen), so the hand is 10 cards again.
- Chooses trump: spades, hearts, clubs, or diamonds.
Playing tricks
The auction winner leads the first card. The others must follow these rules:
- Follow suit: you must play a card of the suit that was led.
- Cut with trump: if you have none of the led suit, you must play a trump.
- Any card: if you have neither the led suit nor trump, you may play any card (it cannot win the trick).
Who wins the trick?
- The strongest card of the led suit, if no trump was played.
- If someone cut, the strongest trump played wins.
The player who wins the trick leads the next one.
Scoring
After all 10 tricks, count how many each player took:
- Made: if the auction winner took at least as many tricks as they bid, they score the tricks they took. A Mexico bid scores +20.
- Fell (public): if they took fewer, they fall for twice the bid (bid 7 and took 6 → −14). A Mexico fall is −40.
- The other two (Gangsters): they score the tricks they took (doubled on Mexico). Zero tricks in a public game costs the bid.
The game ends when a player goes over 51 points at the end of a deal. If more than one player does so in the same deal, the highest score wins.