Q&A for How to Play Petanque

The teams should measure the distance between the throwing circle and the jack. (That's why a tape measure is a standard piece of petanque equipment.) If the distance is less than 6 or more than 10 meters, the thrown jack is considered invalid. Traditionally, the team that threw the invalid jack would throw the jack again. Starting in 2016, however, the international rules changed and now (in official competitions) a team has only one chance to throw a valid jack. If it fails in its one attempt, the jack is turned over to the opposing team which then places it by hand on the terrain.

The officially-recognized way to play includes each team having the same number of players; that number may be one, two, or three people. In informal games where the number of players is limited, people may play with different numbers on the teams; for example, a team of 3 players (playing with 2 boules each) against a team of 2 players (playing with 3 boules each).

It is legal to throw any way you like. However, the most effective way to throw is underarm. As you throw, keep the palm of your hand and the boule toward the ground, with the back of your hand up.

The circle is measured by its inside diameter. A plastic circle must be 50 centimeters in diameter. When players draw a circle on the ground, they generally try to draw it as close to that as they can.

Yes. The rules for throwing the jack are the same as the rules for throwing a boule. You may lean forward on a toe, lifting a heel, when you throw. You may NOT, however, lift your foot completely off of the ground. And you may not have your heel above the circle - your entire foot must be entirely inside the circle.

Once the jack has been successfully thrown, the circle may not be moved. Note, however, that you may move the circle to the maximum legal distance (10 meters) before throwing the jack if you need more room in order to be able to throw it.

Yes. If the jack bounces back and comes to rest within 3 meters of the circle, the jack is considered dead.

The metal balls (boules) are almost always engraved with grooves. The grooves come in a variety of numbers (single, double triple groove), spacings (wide, narrow), and arrangements, so each player can identify his/her own set. Players also often put different colors of paint or permanent marker in the grooves, to help distinguish the sets. Sets of high-end "competition" boules are required to have unique ID numbers engraved on them. For smooth boules (no grooves), you can identify sets by their color (gold, sliver, brushed silver, grey, black, etc.) and by how shiny or rusty they are.

According to the international rules, for doubles and triples, each team plays with six boules. In singles, each player traditionally plays with three.

You must throw the jack to a distance of between 6 and 10 meters. The pre-2016 rules gave a team 3 attempts to throw a valid jack, before the team had to turn the jack over to the opposing team, which then also had 3 attempts. Under the new rules, the team has one attempt to throw a valid jack. If they throw it too short or too long, then the jack is given to the opposing team, which places it on the ground by hand (at a valid distance, of course).

You can build a terrain of any size that you think you will enjoy; the terrain doesn't have to be "legal" before it can be fun. To be able to throw the jack to the maximum legal distance (10 meters), you will need a length of at least 12 meters. Since you are not allowed to throw the jack closer than a half-meter from the sideboard, a width of 3 meters (10') will give you a "landing strip" for the jack that is 2 meters (6' 8") wide. For a home court, therefore, we recommend at least 3 meters (10') wide and 12 meters (40′) long.

Nothing. The jack cannot be thrown to a distance of more than 10 m, but once the jack is on the terrain it is perfectly legal to hit or push the jack to a distance of more than 10 m.

Under international rules, you may rake the court between games, but you may not make any change to the terrain -- including raking it -- between rounds of the same game.

Yes, most groups use that rule when playing on courts that have wooden sideboards but no boundary strings. Note that in this respect, petanque is different from bocce. In bocce, playing balls off of the sideboards is a standard part of the game.

Yes. It is legal to play on ANY kind of surface. Most petanque players consider artificial grass to be less desirable than hard-packed earth, though, because it is too uniform and too "fast" to provide an interesting game. An important feature of any artificial surface is what's beneath it. The subsurface is important because it can make the playing area too hard, too bouncy, or just right.

Petanque can be played anywhere, on any surface, but the traditional place is on a patch of open, flat, level, hard-packed ground. You can find such places in public parks (including dirt paths in the parks) and the infields of baseball diamonds. Sometimes parking lots make great places to play. Playing on grass isn't forbidden, but grass usually has too many random bumps.

The Federation of Petanque, USA, states that petanque may be played on any ground and does not need a defined court. If courts are defined, they must be a minimum of 3 meters by 12 meters for official competitions. National or International official events require a court size of at least 4 meters by 15 meters.

There are no exact dimensions, but the International Petanque Federation (FIPJP) specifies MINIMUM dimensions. For international competitions, the terrain must be at least 4m wide and 15m long. This is generally considered to be the "standard" size for a petanque terrain. For regional or national competitions, the terrain must be at least 3m wide and 12m long.

Normally, petanque is played on a court whose out-of-bounds lines are indicated by strings. But if a court doesn't have such strings, most groups use the rule that a ball (boule or jack) that hits the raised edge is dead.

It is the choice of the team that throws the jack. If there is any direction in which it is possible to throw the jack to the maximum legal distance (10m), then the team is not allowed to move the circle. But if there is NO direction in which it is possible to throw the jack to the maximum legal distance, then the team is allowed to move the circle. If they choose to move it, they must move it away from its location in the last end/round/mene. They are allowed to move it up to a point where it is possible to throw the jack to the maximum legal distance toward the circle's previous location, but no farther.

Probably the best foot position is the same as you would normally use when throwing a boule. Most righthanded players stand with their right foot in front of their left. A few will stand with their feet side-by-side. A righthanded player should not stand with his/her left foot farther forward than the right foot (the biomechanics make that an awkward way to stand and throw).

Yes. It is perfectly legal to hit and move the jack, either by accident or on purpose. There are a few situations in which you might actually want to try to hit and move the jack, called "shooting the jack."

The FIPJP rules do not contain any rule requiring them to answer. Most teams will answer simply out of courtesy, but a few players may occasionally refuse to answer. At that point, you must count the number of boules on the ground ... the number of boules that have already been played, then count the number of your team's unplayed boules, and simple arithmetic will tell you how many unplayed boules the opponents still hold.

Boules are not color-coded by the team, as in some other games. Each player has their own set of boules. The boules are marked by grooves in different patterns. A boule may have sets of one, two, three, or four grooves. On some boules, the grooves form four or six circles. There are many, many different patterns. Players may also choose to put color (red, blue, black) in the grooves of their boules (using paint or magic marker) to make them more distinctive. The boules themselves may differ in appearance, from dark grey to light grey to shiny silver or gold chrome. With all of these differences, you'll soon learn to tell which boules belong to which players.

Both feet must be on the ground and within the throwing circle. But they can be as far apart as you wish, given those constraints. "Petanque" means "feet planted (or anchored to the ground)."

There are no ties in petanque. Every game must produce a winner. Occasionally, however, a local competition may use a special set of rules that allows for a tie, but there is no standard set of such rules, so each set of local competition rules will be unique.

Under the 2020 FIPJP rules, a thrown jack can end up right next to a SIDE line and still be legal. And it must be at least 50cm (half a meter) from any END line. If your thrown jack met those conditions, it was valid and the opponent has no grounds to challenge it. However, the 2020 FIPJP rules allow you only one attempt to throw a valid jack. So if your thrown jack is less than 50cm from an end line, it is not valid and the opponents may now place the jack by hand wherever they wish, as long as they place it in a valid location.

Normally a game is played to 13 points and consists of a series of "rounds", "ends" or "menes"(in French). And yes, a team can score six points in one end, though that is rare.

Yes. Petanque, however, is usually played on a ground that is at least a little rough and uneven, so rolling a boule from the circle to the jack usually isn't effective. That's why Petanque is a throwing game, not a rolling game. Often, what you want to do is to throw your boule half or two-thirds of the distance to the jack, and then let it roll the remaining way.

You can't score more than 13 points. If a team has a score of 12 and then scores two more points, they are considered to have reached 13 and won the game. No, they don't get penalized.