Four players
If four play, a full Piquet pack of 32 cards is used. The cards ranks (from highest to lowest) as follows: Ace, King, Queen, Jack, 10, 9, 8, 7. Seven cards are dealt to each player, the remaining 4 cards are held by the dealer. There are no trumps.
The dealer now 'shoves' any 3 cards (typically low value ones) to rearhand (the player on his left). Rearhand shoves any 2 cards to middlehand, who shoves one card in turn to forehand on the dealer's right. Thus everyone ends up with 8 cards.
Forehand now leads to the first trick and the remaining players, in clockwise order, aim to follow suit. If they are unable to, they may discard any card. The player who plays the highest card of the led suit wins the trick and leads to the next. The first 7 tricks do not count as far as the result is concerned, but the winner of the last trick, loses the game and scores a penalty point. If a player wins all the tricks, called a march (Durchmarsch), however, he wins and everyone else gets a penalty point.