How to play Capote — beginner's guide

Capote is a multiplayer trick-taking card game inspired by classic Brazilian bar games like truco and fodinha. Each match is loud, fast, and built around one rule: call exactly how many tricks you will win, then hit that number. This guide walks you through your first hour at the table.

What you need before you sit down

• A copy of Capote on Steam — version 1.0, $5.99, runs on Windows and Linux.
• A stable internet connection. Capote is online 2 to 6 player PvP, so lag ruins calls.
• A headset if you want to trash talk — built-in voice and text chat are part of the experience.
• Friends. Bots can fill empty seats, but the chaos doubles when real opponents are at the table.

Once you launch Capote, hit Play, pick Classic, and choose how many bots you want to practice against. Two bots are the sweet spot for learning the round flow without being ganged up on.

The round, step by step

1. Deal. Every player gets the same number of cards (typically three, with the option to raise the count as you grow comfortable).
2. Call. Before any card is played, every player secretly bids the exact number of tricks they think they will win. Bidding zero is legal. Bidding the full hand is legal.
3. Play. Players take turns laying down one card. The strongest card in the trick wins it; special cards can override the natural order.
4. Score. After the round, count how many tricks each player actually won.
5. Drink shots. Every miss — winning more or fewer tricks than you bid — costs you one virtual shot per trick of error.
6. Elimination. Hit four shots total and you are capotado — out of the match until the next game.

That is the entire core loop. The magic is that you cannot win without risk: bid conservatively and you almost certainly win your bid, but the pot of real chaos belongs to whoever calls high and lands it.

Bidding without going capotado

Your bid is the most important decision in any round. A solid baseline:

• Two-card hand, three total tricks in the round. Bid zero if your cards are weak, one if you hold a clear high card, two only when you have both top cards.
• Three-card hand. Bid zero on trash, one when you hold a single strong card, two on a dominant pair, three on a near-perfect hand.
• Adjust for special cards. If opponents hold obvious saboteurs, shave a trick off your bid. A botched bid costs more than a low one.

Always remember: the penalty is symmetric. If you bid two and win four, you take two shots — one for each trick over your call.

Special cards you will see in round one

There are eleven special cards in the current build. Three of them come up in almost every match:

• Force High — the next player must play their strongest legal card. Save it to sabotage a confident bid.
• Reverse Order — turn order flips for the rest of the round. Use it to punish the player who just played a winning card.
• Shuffle the Deck — discards the trick and reshuffles. Excellent when the table is about to win their bid.

A full breakdown lives on the Special Cards Catalog.

Reading the table

Capote rewards players who watch the bets. If two opponents both bid high, the round is going to be a bloodbath — play defensively and target whoever is most exposed. If everyone bids zero, someone is sandbagging for a special card finish. The trick is rarely the trick — the meta is the call.

Practice loop for your first match

1. Open a private lobby with three bots on Easy.
2. Bid conservatively for three rounds to learn the card strength.
3. Start adding one aggressive bid per round once you can name every card.
4. Switch to Classic 1v1 against one bot for focused bidding drills.
5. Join a public 4 or 5 player lobby and bring what you learned.

Once you can survive ten consecutive rounds without going capotado, you are ready for the Betting Strategy deep dive and the Modes comparison so you can decide where to specialize next.

Quick rules recap

• Two to six players per table, plus bots.
• Bid exactly how many tricks you will win.
• Each missed trick = one virtual shot.
• Four shots = capotado (eliminated).
• Special cards can flip the round at any moment.

If anything here contradicts what the in-game tutorial says, the in-game tutorial is authoritative — this fan wiki reflects community-tested understanding as of the latest patch notes.