Ligretto – How To Play
The first time I played Ligretto, I was in a dormitory in the Netherlands, learning the rules through rushed English and incomprehensible Dutch… It was chaotic, confusing and a hell of a lot of fun. However, if you’re hoping to skip the chaos and jump straight into the fun, I’m now here to teach you the rules in a slightly more organised fashion!
Set Up – Let’s Ligret-Go!
In order to play Ligretto, you must first sort the cards into four decks, according to the colours on the backs of said cards (the backs of the cards are the side that says Ligretto). For Ligretto Green, these colours are purple, green, brown and pink.
Each player then takes a deck and shuffles it. If you are playing with less than 4 players, put the remaining decks back into the box.
Once each player has shuffled their deck, they must create a row of 3, 4 or 5 face up cards in front of them (for a 4-player, 3-player and 2-player game, respectively). They must each then deal a pile of 10 cards face up in front of them, to the side of their row. This is their Ligretto stack. The remainder of each player’s deck stays in their hand.
Playing The Game
Players may place cards into the middle of the play surface, from their row, their Ligretto stack or their discard pile (which is created from their hand).
The cards placed on the play surface form piles of numbers in ascending order. The first number in a pile is always 1, no numbers can be skipped, and all cards in that pile must be the same colour (e.g. I can place a green 2 on a green 1, but I can’t place a blue 2 on a green 1). There are no turns in Ligretto, so a player may place cards as soon as they are able to… as long as someone else doesn’t beat them to it!
When a player places a card from their row, they may re-fill that row with the top card of the Ligretto stack.
If a player wishes to play cards from their hand, they may place 3 cards into a face up discard pile. The top card (and only the top card) of the discard pile may be played at any time. However, players may also continue dealing sets of 3 cards face up onto their discard pile. If a player plays a card from their discard pile, and a different card becomes the uppermost card in the pile, the player may play that card, then the next one, and so on. If the player has no cards left in their hand, they should pick up the discard pile (without shuffling) and re-start this process.
Ending The Game – “Say Uno!”
Only joking.
When a player has removed all 10 cards from their Ligretto stack, they may call “Ligretto!” (officially they should call “Ligretto stop”, but that is quite the mouthful).
Once a player has called Ligretto, the game must immediately stop and no more cards can be played.
At this point, all of the piles on the play surface are turned over and sorted by the colour on their rear side. For each card that a player played into the central play surface, they gain one point. However, for each card they had remaining in their Ligretto stack, they lose two points. The row, hand and discard pile do not score any positive or negative points. The player with the most points wins!
Though in most scenarios it is advisable for a player to call Ligretto as soon as they empty their stack, they may wish to prolong the game by waiting to call Ligretto until their have gained more points.
If it becomes impossible for any player to place a card, the game ends there and points are tallied without anyone calling Ligretto.
For The Thinkers – Advanced Variant
There is an advanced version of Ligretto where players may place cards from their discard pile and Ligretto stack onto the cards in their row. The only constraints to this is that numbers must be laid in a descending order and colours must alternate (as opposed to the central play area where colours in a pile must be the same and numbers must be in an ascending order).
But It Doesn’t Have To Stop There!
You think you’ll just play one round? You’re wrong. Because as soon as you finish, someone will say “Rematch?” and suddenly you’ve played for an hour. To turn Ligretto from a sprint into a marathon, I’d suggest playing with multiple rounds, having all players race to achieve a certain number of points or to win a certain number of rounds. I personally enjoy the goal of reaching 99 points – especially when I’m the one who reaches that score first!
