Play Pétanque

The way to play Pétanque.

Teams comprise of either single players, pairs or triples, singles and doubles games each player has three boules each, with triples each player only has two boules each.

The teams toss a coin to see who starts. The starting team draws a circle in the ground between 30cm & 50cm diameter – then throws the target jack out to a distance of between 6 to 10 meters. The jack must stop at least 1m from any obstacle, such as the surround, a wall, etc.

The starting team then throws their first boule, trying to get as close as possible to the jack. Then the 2nd team’s player stands in the circle, and tries to get their boule closer to the jack than the opposing team. They can try to do this by rolling their boule in or even shooting at the opposing team’s boule moving it away If that team does get a boule closer than any of its opponents, it’s called “holding point” – and then the opposing team has to attempt to throw a boule closer. The team which does not have the closest boule (to the jack) keeps throwing boules until either they get closest, or they run out of boules to throw.

Teams continue to play until a team reaches 13 points, the team which won the points at the last end, starts the next end, drawing a circle around the position of the jack and uses that as the new throwing circle. When all boules are thrown on each end, only the boules of the team that are holding point are added to the running score.