How to play petanque?

1- Divide the players into two teams. You can play 1 vs. 1 (3 balls per player); 2 vs. 2 (3 balls per player); or 3 vs. 3 (2 balls per player).

2- Have the teams flip a coin to see who starts.

3- The starting team draws a circle in the ground - then throws the target ball or cochonnet out to a distance of 6 to 10 meters (19.7 to 32.8 ft).

4- The starting team then throws their first boule, trying to get as close as possible to the cochon.Then the 2nd team's player stands in the circle, and tries to get their boule closer to the cochon than the opposing team. They can try to do this by rolling their boule; lobbing it; or even throwing it at the opposing team's boule moving it away.

5-
Learn that if that team does get a boule closer than any of its opponents, it's called "having the point" - and then the opposing team has to attempt to throw a boule closer.

6-
Understand that the team which does not have the closest boule (to the cochon) keeps throwing boules until either they get closest, or they run out of boules to throw.

7-
When all boules are thrown, only the boules of the one team that are closest to the cochonnet are added to the running score. That is, if team-A "has the point" and has 2 of it's 3 boules closest to the cochon before then opposing team's boule (in this example, the 3rd closest boule), then team-A gets 2 points added to their score.

8-
Know that the teams continue to play until a team reaches 13 points (the team which had the point, starts the new round, drawing a circle around the position of the cochon and uses that as the new throwing circle).