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Notes on the

Official Rules of

the Game of Pétanque

as approved 7th October 2010 in FIPJP in Izmir, Turkey by the International Congress of Fédération Internationale de Pétanque et Jeu Provençal

by Stephen R. Ferg

Last updated: 2015-09-24

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en_US.

Preface ....................................................................................................................................................... 3

About this book ................................................................................................................................. 3

About the rules .......................................................................................................................................... 4

Who makes the rules? ....................................................................................................................... 4

Why do we need a revised English translation? ............................................................................... 6

Problems with the rules ..................................................................................................................... 7

Notes on the translation............................................................................................................................. 8

Persons and groups mentioned in the rules ....................................................................................... 8

The playing area, boundary lines, out-of-bounds areas .................................................................... 9

The game process ............................................................................................................................ 15

Things dead, null, and invalid ......................................................................................................... 20

Miscellaneous terminology ............................................................................................................. 21

Notes on individual rules ........................................................................................................................ 23

Article 2 – Cooking the boules ....................................................................................................... 23

Article 2 – Stuffing the boules ........................................................................................................ 25

Article 5 – Dead-ball lines .............................................................................................................. 26

Article 6 - What is a rigid circle? .................................................................................................... 28

Article 8 - Challenging the jack ...................................................................................................... 29

Article 9 - What to do if the jack is not visible after the last boule is thrown ................................ 34

Article 11 - When a leaf hides the jack ........................................................................................... 35

Article 31 - Consulting with the team coach ................................................................................... 39

Rules missing or vague ........................................................................................................................... 41

How are points scored? ................................................................................................................... 41

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When does a mene start? When does a mene end? ......................................................................... 42

The “landing strip” for a thrown jack ............................................................................................. 43

Picking up the circle too soon ......................................................................................................... 46

Picking up a boule too soon ............................................................................................................ 47

What should be done if a player picks up a boule too soon? .......................................................... 50


Preface

About this book

This is Volume II of a two-volume work about the rules of petanque.

Volume 1 contains the FIPJP's French-language rules, and a side-by-side translation of those rules into

American English. The English translation was prepared by Stephen Ferg.

Volume 2 contains notes and commentary on the rules in Volume 1, including notes on the translation.


About the rules

Who makes the rules?

Petanque was invented in the south of France, in a small town near Marseille, in 1910. It is, therefore, a

French game and its native language is French. English versions of its rules are translations of French

originals.

The international governing body of the sport of petanque is the Fédération Internationale de Pétanque et Jeu

Provençal, the FIPJP. Prior to its creation (in 1958) there had been only national organizations (notably the

French Fédération Française Bouliste du « Jeu Provençal et Pétanque »), each with its own set of rules. The

FIPJP issued the first version of the international rules of petanque in 1959, and there have been periodic

revisions since then – most recently in 2002, 2006, 2008, and 2010.

The FIPJP rules are written and revised by the FIPJP International Umpires Commission, a committee

composed of FIPJP authorized international umpires (arbitres internationaux). Every two years the

Commission considers changes to the rules, and may propose revisions of the rules.

The normal practice is for the Commission to work on revisions to the rules for 12 months or more, and

then to forward the revised version of the rules to the FIPJP Executive Committee. The Executive

Committee then considers the revisions during its spring meeting (usually in April). In theory, the FIPJP

Executive Committee then forwards the new, revised version of the rules to the national federations (that is,

to the national federations of France, England, Germany, Australia, Thailand, Canada, the USA, and so on)

for comments and feedback.1 Finally, the revised version is formally introduced and approved at the FIPJP

World Congress, which is convened along with the Men's World Championships – usually in September,

October, or November of even-numbered years. Revised versions of the rules come into effect in the winter,

between seasons.

The FIPJP releases two versions of the rules. One version is in French (the official language) and the other

is in English. In theory, these documents are posted on the FIPJP’s web site, although the administration of

the official FIPJP web site (http://www.fipjp.com/) leaves a lot to be desired.

Once the FIPJP rules are released, each national federation adapts the new international rules to create new

versions of their own national rules. For some nations (France, for instance) the international rules are left

virtually unchanged. For some nations adapting the rules means translating the French document into

their own national language.

Sometimes a national federation will actually modify the international rules before adopting them as their

own national rules. Modifications can include terminology changes to make the wording more idiomatic

for a particular nation (for example, for American English, British English, and Australian English). The

modifications may also include actual changes to the rules, or the insertion of explanatory text into the

rules. In 2006, for instance, the FIPJP approved the use of hard, plastic jacks. This was an unpopular

decision, and several national federations, including the FPUSA, amended their national versions to forbid

the use of synthetic jacks.

National federations may also add rules when adapting the international rules to their own national needs.

1In fact the national federations never receive draft copies of the proposals. The first time that they see them is

after the Executive Committee has approved the final draft to be submitted to the International Congress.

http://www.fipjp.com/


They may, for instance, add rules requiring appropriate dress or behavior. Such rules are often appended

to the official rules in a section called Code of Behavior. Most national federations forbid smoking and

drinking during games. Some forbid the wearing of high-heeled shoes or open-toed footwear at

competitions. (Open-toed shoes are likely to catch on boundary strings and cause falls.)

Summer is the normal petanque season (at least in France), and the season comes to a close late in the year.

In even-numbered years, it ends with the Men's World Championships and the World Congress. Once the

FIPJP has adopted a new revision of the international rules, national federations need some time to update

their own national rules. Most national versions of the rules, therefore, are adopted and dated in the early

months of the year after the year when the FIPJP revised version was approved and released. So revisions

of the international FIPJP rules are dated in even-numbered years, but most national versions of the rules

are dated in the following odd-numbered years.

The international rules are used for tournaments at the international level – that is, for tournaments of the

continental confederations (such as the EuroCup) and at the FIPJP world championships. National rules

are used for tournaments at the national level and below (e.g. at the regional level).

For any particular competition or tournament (concours), the competition organizers may make

modifications to the rules, or specify additional rules, that apply only to that particular competition. At

the very least, the competition organizer will probably specify rules for the dimensions of the lanes, rules

for which rounds of the tournament will be time-limited, and so on.

Thus, for any particular competition, there are multiple layers of rules that apply. For a club-level or

regional-level tournament, the layers will be

• the international (FIPJP) rules

• as modified by the national federation

• as modified by the competition organizer.

That's not really as complicated as it sounds. But it is true that for any particular tournament, competitors

should be alert and pay careful attention to the competition organizer's stipulations as to the rules that will

be in effect for the tournament.


Why do we need a revised English translation?

The rules of petanque can be difficult for English-speaking American players to understand.

The biggest problem is that the rules – the original rules, written in French – are simply badly written.

They are difficult to understand and to interpret. Oral tradition can reduce the impact of this problem on

French players, but Americans have no such long-standing oral tradition. American players need more

than just a word-for-word translation of the rules document. They need additional support in the form of

notes and commentary.

For Anglophone players, another major problem lies in the English translation of the French rules

document. The FIPJP translators tried to produce an accessible and helpful English translation. In doing

so, they often deviated from what the French text actually says. Technical terms, which should be

translated consistently throughout the document, are translated differently in different places. Sometimes

the English text introduces distinctions or qualifications that don't exist in the French original; in other

cases it hides some that do. Occasionally the translation is simply wrong. (The chief offender on all these

counts is the adjective nul, or nulle.)

This document – our revised English translation – attempts to address these problems. We choose a single

English translation for each technical term, document and explain our choice, and use it consistently

throughout the translation. We note and explain differences with other translations. Notes and comments

provide information about context and background, explaining rules that otherwise would be

incomprehensible.


Problems with the rules

The FIPJP International Rules of Petanque are very badly written. They aren't complete, systematic,

rigorous, or well-organized. Sentences are poorly written. Important terms are undefined. Important

rules are unstated, or ambiguous. Cryptic rules are enunciated but not explained. This poor quality of the

written rules has its roots in French history, petanque tradition, and the organizational culture of the FIPJP

and its Umpires Commission. Almost certainly this problem will never be resolved.

Aside from just plain sloppiness and poor writing in general, it is possible to identify a few specific reasons

why the rules are difficult to understand and use.

Note that there are two significantly different ways to play petanque. We can call them traditional

petanque and tournament petanque.

• Petanque as it is traditionally played is, as Raymond Ager likes to say, “a simple game for simple

people”. It is played on an open terrain in a place such as a village square or public park. It is informal.

There are no boundaries. There are no umpires. The important rules concern distances – distances from

the throwing circle, from an obstacle, and so on.

• Tournament petanque is something else entirely. It is what you get when you evolve a traditional

game into a world championship competition. It is formal and organized. There is a grid of terrains.

They are all the same size, and their boundaries are marked with boundary lines. There is an umpire. The

important rules are the ones that concern boundary lines – what is in-bounds, what is out-of-bounds, and

what that means for the way the game is played.

One source of problems is that the rules try to be a single set of rules for a game that is played in both the

traditional way and in a tournament format. In some situations the rules for distances and the rules for

boundary lines both apply, and it can be difficult to figure out how to reconcile them.

These problems, however, are relatively minor. They are dwarfed by other problems...

The biggest problem with the rules is that the rules are written by the FIPJP, and the FIPJP does not

distinguish between (a) rules for the game of petanque as such, and (b) administrative rules that the FIPJP

uses to run its tournaments. In short, the “international rules of petanque” are in fact the FIPJP's own in-

house rules. They are written by the FIPJP primarily for the use of the FIPJP and not for the use of players

of traditional petanque around the world.

One aspect of this problem is the fact that the rules are written by FIPJP umpires to address the concerns of

FIPJP umpires. That is, the rules are written with world-championship tournaments in mind. This is the

world that FIPJP umpires inhabit, and it is the world for which their rules are written. Many of the rules

make sense only if we assume that the context is a world championship tournament, complete with

umpires and a grid of marked terrains.

The umpire (arbitre) plays a large role in the rules. Many of the rules are designed to help the umpire or to

assert his authority. Rules that require marks on the ground, for instance, are designed to support the

umpire – the only grounds that an umpire may have for his decision may be marks on the ground.

The reliance on the umpire has had a bad effect on both the rules and on petanque players. The rules call

upon an umpire to make a decision, when they should explain the grounds upon which anyone (the

umpire or ordinary players) should base a decision. In this way the rules create an unhealthy dependence

on umpires in the minds of petanque players. Petanque players who should be criticizing the rules and

demanding better-written rules, shrug their shoulders and say “The rules are fine. When in doubt, just ask

the umpire.”


Notes on the translation

Persons and groups mentioned in the rules

the French expression is translated into English as

les joueurs the players

l'Arbitre the umpire

les spectateurs the spectators

Petanque is traditionally played in open spaces such as public parks, where

there may be spectators actually standing on the terrain where the game is

being played. That's why there are rules for things like spectators interfering

with moving boules.

le Jury The jury is a group of 3 to 5 people selected by the competition organizer for the

purpose of dealing with situations that occur during the competition that are

not covered in the rules. These are typically issues of behavior. Issues

involving the interpretation and application of the rules are usually left in the

hands of the umpires. (Several rules say explicitly that the umpire's decision is

sans appel – may not be appealed to the jury.)

The rules governing a competition often specify how and when the jury for the

competition will be selected. For many competitions, a jury is selected only if

and when the need for a jury arises.

la table de marque the control table

At a competition, the control table is the table where players and teams check

in, report the results of games that they have finished, find out which team they

will play against in the next round, and so on.

fédérations nationales,

membres de la F.I.P.J.P

national federations, members of the FIPJP

sa licence his membership card

Only members of an FIPJP-affiliated national organization are allowed to

participate in FIPJP-sanctioned tournaments.

le Comité d’Organisation the Organizing Committee (of the competition)

l’organisme fédéral

l’instance fédérale

the federal organization

the federal organization

The national federation under whose auspices a competition is taking place.

le Comité Directeur the Committee Director

The director of the Organizing Committee.


The playing area, boundary lines, out-of-bounds areas

terrain

terrain de jeu

terrain

game terrain

In the context of the rules, “terrain” is a technical term referring to the patch of

ground on which a game of petanque is being played. When a game is played in

an open space like a park, the terrain has no specific location and no boundaries,

and may move from place to place. In tournaments, games are usually played on

“marked terrains” which have specific locations, and boundary lines marked on

the ground.

In some contexts, terrain de jeu specifically means in-bounds in a marked terrain.

l’inclinaison du terrain the slope of the ground

le sol the ground

Example – “to draw a circle on the ground (le sol)”. In certain contexts, the

French le sol has the sense of “the floor”.

aire de jeu playing area

An area that contains one or more terrains.

délimiter to mark the boundaries of

The English verb “to delimit” is derived from the French verb délimiter, and the

two words have essentially the same meaning – to mark or define the limits or

boundaries of [something].

terrain délimité

terrain limité

terrain tracé

terrain cadré

marked terrain

marked terrain

marked terrain

marked terrain

A marked terrain is a terrain whose boundaries are indicated in some way –

traditionally, by strings strung tightly between nails driven into the ground.

Here, for the sake of clarity, we translate several different French expressions as

“marked terrain”. Note, however, that in the original French there is no single

expression or technical term that corresponds to “marked terrain”. Rather, words

such as délimité and tracé are merely descriptive – they are used simply to say that

a terrain has marks that indicate its boundaries. Note that the rules never

describe a terrain using any form of the verb marquer.


cadre lane

When a playing area is marked off into a grid of rectangles, each rectangle is

called a cadre (“lane”). The French word cadre means “frame”. It has been

translated into English in a variety of ways – “lane”, “alley”, “court”, “pitch”,

“piste”.

When a game is played inside one of these rectangles, we say that the game is

being played on a “marked terrain”. The text of the rules does not consistently

distinguish the terms terrain and cadre and occasionally uses them

interchangeably. For example, in some places the rules say that a terrain, and in

other places a cadre, is delimited by strings or assigned to a game.

Article 5 combines the two words in an interesting expression – un seul terrain

cadré, literally “one framed terrain”. Article 5 says that time-limited competitions

“must always be played on a terrain in a single lane (sur un seul terrain cadré)”.

ficelle string

Strings are used to mark the boundaries of lanes. Earlier versions of the rules

used the word corde or fil. Most of these words carry the general sense of thread,

string, twine, rope, or wire.

piste lane

Older versions of the rules used the word piste, but piste does not appear in the

current version of the rules. The current version uses the word cadre.

The word piste comes from the Old Italian word pistare, meaning “to trample

down”, and is used to refer to a trampled-down trail or track, or any long, narrow

strip of ground. In fencing, for example, the “piste” is the long area (the fencing

mat) where a fencing match takes place.

cadre affecté

terrain affecté

terrain imparti

assigned lane

assigned terrain

assigned terrain

The lane (or terrain) upon which the game is being played.

During a tournament, each game is based on a particular lane – that is the game's

“assigned lane”. Depending on circumstances, the tournament organizer may

assign a match (rencontre, a game between two specific teams) to be played on a

specific lane. That lane is then the “assigned lane” for that match. In other

circumstances, the matched teams may toss a coin; the winner gets to choose the

lane where the game will be played.


le fond de cadre the foot of the lane

Le fond de cadre is a short side (as opposed to a long side) of a rectangular cadre.

The expression fond de cadre is the only place in the rules where the word fond

occurs. In French, fond means “the bottom” (see the related English word

“foundation”). Following such English expressions as “the foot of the bed”, we

here translate le fond de cadre as “the foot of the lane”.

une ligne de perte a dead-ball line

Saying that a line is “a dead-ball line” is a concise way of saying that, if a live

boule or jack crosses that line, the boule or jack becomes dead. Ligne de perte

means the “lost-ball line” and older versions of the rules (up through 1970)

described dead balls interchangeably as nul or perdu (lost).

For more information, see the section on “Notes on individual rules”.

jeux contigus

jeux latéralement

contigus

neighboring lanes (literally “contiguous games”)

neighboring lanes (literally “laterally contiguous games”)

When a game is played on a marked terrain, the neighboring lanes are the lanes (if

any) that share a long side with the assigned lane. Depending on where a lane is

located in the playing area, it may have zero, one, or two neighboring lanes.

traverse crosses into

The French verb traverser is usually translated as “to cross”. Like its English

counterpart “traverse”, it has the sense of “to extend travel across, on, over, or

above”. The word traverse appears only in Article 9 (applied to the jack) and in

Article 18 (applied to boules). The wording of the two articles is almost identical.

Article 18 says that a boule is dead if it “completely crosses (traverse entièrement)”

more than one neighboring lane. That's equivalent to saying that a boule is dead

if it completely crosses at least two neighboring lanes. And that is wrong – that's

not the way the game is played. The problem is not with the English translation.

The original French text can be interpreted this way, too. The rule, even in the

original French, is simply badly written.

Here, we translate traverse as “crosses into”. So “La boule traverse entièrement plus

d’un des jeux contigus...” is “The boule completely crosses into more than one

neighboring lane...” The word “completely” here implies that the entire boule has

crossed the boundary line. The boule has not partially, but completely, crossed

the boundary line and entered into the next lane.


avoir dépassé

entièrement

has completely traveled beyond

The French verb dépasser means “to pass, travel, or go beyond; to exceed”. Like

traverse, it appears in the rules in only two places, in articles 9 and 18. It is used to

contrast a jack or boule à cheval sur (straddling) a boundary line with one that

avoir dépassé entièrement (has completely traveled beyond) a boundary line. In

French à cheval sur (“straddling”) has connotations of a rider sitting on a horse –

un cheval.

The phrase avoir dépassé is usually translated as “has crossed”, but that fails to

capture the difference between traverser (to cross) and dépasser (to go beyond).


terrain autorisé

terrain interdit

terrain prohibé

in-bounds area

out-of-bounds area

out-of-bounds area (in older versions of the rules)

These terms apply only to a game being played on a marked terrain (a lane, cadre).

Terrain autorisé (“authorized ground”) is territory where a boule or jack may

move safely. In contrast, a boule or jack dies the instant it enters terrain interdit

(“forbidden territory”, sometimes translated as “dead ground”). The closest

idiomatic English counterparts to these French terms are “in-bounds” and “out-

of-bounds”.

The in-bounds and out-of-bounds areas for any particular game are determined

by the combination of the global and local dead-ball lines for that game. For any

particular game, the terrain autorisé is the area in-bounds (inside) of the dead-ball

lines for that game. Similarly, the terrain interdit is the area out-of-bounds

(outside) of the dead-ball lines for that game.

When playing a time-limited game on a lane, all four boundary lines of the lane

are dead-ball lines. That is, the assigned lane is in-bounds and everything else is

out-of-bounds.

For games that are not being played under any time limits, the restrictions are

relaxed. On any long side that is shared with a neighboring lane, the local dead-

ball line is moved to the far long side of the neighboring lane. That is, if there are

any neighboring lanes, they are considered to be in-bounds for the game. In

many cases a game's in-bounds area will include three lanes – its own assigned

lane, plus the neighboring lane on one side, plus the neighboring lane on the other

side.

Note that, although neighboring lanes may be in-bounds for a game, it is still the

case that the circle must be placed in, and the jack must be thrown onto, the

assigned lane, not a neighboring lane.

There is one place in the rules where terrain interdit is not defined by reference to a

dead-ball line. Article 9 says that any puddle that is deep enough to float the jack

is to be considered terrain interdit, and the jack is dead if there is a patch of terrain

interdit between the circle and the jack.

terrain jouable playable terrain

This expression occurs only once, in Article 19.2. Presumably it is another way of

referring to the terrain autorisé, the in-bounds area.


un cercle matérialisé a physical circle

un cercle matérialisé is literally “a materialized

circle” or “an embodied circle”. The expression

refers to a circle that exists not as a drawing on

the ground, but as a physical object. In the

official FIPJP translation it is “a prefabricated

circle”.

Article 6 specifies that physical circles must be rigid.

The first prototypes of plastic circles appeared

around 2004. They were not rigid, but flexible and

floppy, something like a deflated bicycle inner tube.

(See the picture on the left.)

This was cumbersome, and the floppy circles were

quickly replaced by the rigid plastic circles that we

know today. The rigidity specification in Article 6

was not intended to forbid folding plastic circles, which were introduced later.

Folding circles, however, quickly lose their rigidity and become as shapeless as the

early plastic circles. It is therefore reasonable to exclude folding circles from

championship competitions.

barrières barriers

The word “barriers” occurs only once, in Article 5. It refers to fences or crowd-

control barriers (either temporary or permanent) whose purpose is to keep

spectators off of the playing area. Such fences are often portable steel barriers

installed temporarily at tournaments, although they may be permanent parts of

the architecture of a boulodrome. The barriers must be at least a meter from the

playing area in order to allow players to throw with a normal backswing without

fear of hitting the barriers.

For many years before 2008, the word barrières in Article 5 was translated into

English as “solid barriers”. This caused confusion among Anglophone petanque

players because "solid barriers" suggests the low wooden surrounds that are

installed in many boulodromes for the purpose of keeping boules from being shot

out of the playing area. The word “solid” was dropped from English translations

as part of a major revision and simplification of the rules in 2008.

Before 2008, the rules specified that barrières, if present, had to be at least 30cm

outside the exterior dead-ball line. (That distance was changed to 1m in 2008.)

The distance of 30cm lives on in the FIPJP's current unofficial recommendation

that wooden surrounds, if present, should be at least 30cm outside the exterior

dead-ball line.


The game process

boule boule

boules are the metal balls that players throw at the jack

le but the jack

the small, traditionally wooden, sometimes painted, target ball, often called

cochonnet or bouchon.

le tirage au sort the draw

A random selection process. The method of the selection process is not specified;

the only requirement is that the process be random.

Le tirage is “the draw” as in “to draw a card from the deck”. Sort carries the sense

of “fate” and what fate hands you, your lot or portion in life. So le tirage au sort is

“the drawing of lots”.

There are two types of draw mentioned in the rules.

Le tirage au sort des rencontres (“the draw for matches”) occurs at the beginning of a

tournament to determine which teams will play each other in the first round

(tour) of the tournament. Article 31 specifies that all players must be present at

the control table at the time of le tirage au sort des rencontres.

Everywhere else le tirage au sort refers to the draw, conducted before a game, to

determine which team plays first. Here, le tirage au sort is sometimes translated as

“the toss”. The team that wins this draw gets to pick the assigned lane for the

game (unless one has already been assigned by the tournament organizer), place

the circle, and throw the jack and the first boule. Common methods for this draw

include a coin toss and “pick the hand holding the jack”. A traditional method is

for the umpire to take the jack, along with one boule from each team, and throw

them over his shoulder, like a bride tossing the bouquet at a wedding. The

winner is the team whose boule ends up closest to the jack.


une mène a mene

A mène is roughly the petanque equivalent of a round in boxing or an inning in

baseball. A mene consists of three activities – (a) throwing out the jack, (b)

throwing the boules, and (c) the agreement of points.

The official FIPJP rules do not define mène. This (from a 1971 Canadian Petanque

Federation booklet) seems as good a definition as any – “When all of the players

have played all of their boules, we say that they have played a mène. A game is

composed of whatever number of mènes is necessary for one of the teams to score

a winning number of points.”

The French word mène is usually translated into English as “end”. This leads to

such unfortunate locutions as “the end of the end”. Here, we treat mène (without

the accented “e”) as an untranslatable technical term – “mene”.

la fin the end

the finish, completion, or termination of some activity

la fin de la mène the end of the mene

The end of the mene occurs after the points have been agreed.

Article 32 states that “a mene is considered to have started when the jack has been

placed on the game terrain in accordance with the rules.”

In short, a mene begins with the successful throw of a live jack, and finishes when

the points have been agreed. Having precise definitions of these events is

important in time-limited games, where it sometimes must be decided – at a

particular point in time – whether a new mene has begun yet, or whether a mene

in progress has finished.

Having a clear definition of when a mene has started is also important in a case

when a player arrives late. If a mene has already started, a late-arriving player

must wait until the end of the mene in progress before he can join the game.

le décompte des points the agreement of points

Interestingly, the rules nowhere describe the agreement of points or even how

points are scored at the end of a normal mene. (The closest they come is in Article

28, which describes how points are scored in an equidistant boules situation.)

“The agreement of points” involves the two teams (or team captains) examining

the final situation on the ground (and possibly measuring) in order to determine

which team has won the mene and how many points it scored.

The mene is not considered to be over until the two teams have agreed on these

facts. It is forbidden to pick up any boule or jack before the agreement of points is

complete.


donnée the intended landing spot.

The spot on the terrain where the thrower plans to make his boule hit the ground

déplacé

le but est déplacé

displaced

the jack is displaced

moved to a different location

enlever

ramasser

to pick up OR to remove

to pick up

Both enlever and ramasser can be translated into English as “to pick up”. And the

rules sometimes use the two words interchangeably. For example the first two

sentences of Article 26 are “It is forbidden for players to pick up (ramasser) played

boules before the end of the mene. At the end of a mene, any boule picked up

(enlevée) before the agreement of points is dead.”

Of the two words, enlever is more likely to carry the sense of “to remove”.

Articles 15 and 29, for instance, say that a player must remove (enlever) any mud

or foreign substance clinging to a boule before throwing it. For that reason, we

sometimes translate enlever as “to remove” rather than “to pick up”.

Ramasser, on the other hand, is more likely to carry the sense of “raise” or “lift”.

The French term for a boule lifter is a ramasse boule. Article 3 prohibits the use of

jacks that can be ramassés avec un aimant (“picked up with a magnet”).

Ramasser occurs in the rules only two times, in articles 3 and 29. Enlever, on the

other hand, occurs many times.

marquer to mark the position of

As in “to mark the position of a boule or the jack”.

The traditional way to mark the position of a boule (or jack) is

(starting beneath the curve of the boule if possible) to scratch at

least two lines in the dirt away from the center of the boule, so that the lines, if

extended, would intersect at the spot where the boule is resting on the ground. If

the boule is illegally moved, that's the spot to which it will be returned.

Normally, positions are marked only if there is a reason to fear that a boule or jack

might be moved illegally... by the wind (on a windy day) or by a foreign boule

coming onto the terrain (if a neighboring game is getting uncomfortably close).

There is another situation in which a ball's position is marked. If a ball (probably

a jack) is shot from terrain A onto neighboring terrain B, the courteous (and

required) behavior is for the players from A to immediately mark the position of

the stray ball and pick it up. The players on terrain B continue until their mene is

finished. Then the stray ball is put back in the marked position, and the players

from terrain A finish their mene. They then return to terrain A to continue their

game.


marquer

marque de points

to score

scores points

la mesure du point the measurement of the point

Depending on the context,“measuring the point” or “the process of measuring the

point” would be equally good translations.

a le point hold the point

Avoir le point is literally “to have the point”.

In the rules, le point (“the point”) is used in two different ways. (a) The team that

has the best boule is said to “have the point” or to “hold the point”. (b) At the

end of a mene the winning teams “scores” points. Because “having the point”

might be considered ambiguous between holding the point and scoring a point, in

this translation we translate a le point as the unambiguous “hold the point”.

In one of the worst-written of all the rules, Article 27 specifies that le point est

perdu (“the point is lost”) by a team that moves a boule or jack while measuring.

The general idea is probably that a team should not be allowed to gain the point

by bumping a boule while measuring. Unfortunately, it is not at all clear what

the rule really “cashes out to”, or how to apply it in even slightly complex

situations.

ce délai this period of time

“this period” or “this amount of time” would be equally good translations.


obstacle obstacle

The rules use the word “obstacle” to refer to two quite different things.

In articles 6 and 7, an “obstacle” is a physical object or feature of the terrain

insofar as it might interfere with a player's normal throwing form. A tree, for

example, would be considered an “obstacle” if the circle was so close to the tree

that the tree interfered with a player's backswing. Articles 6 and 7 are devoted to

keeping the circle at least one meter away from such obstacles.

Elsewhere in the rules, “obstacle” is used to characterize any feature of the

terrain, or object on the terrain, insofar as it might interfere with the normal travel

of a boule or jack, or might interfere with measurement. These rules would be

just as clear if, instead of “obstacle”, they used a word like “thing” or

“something”.

Article 10 forbids players from moving or crushing any “obstacle” on the terrain.

Here, an obstacle is anything on the terrain that might prevent a thrown boule

from traveling in a smooth, straight, predictable manner. Once a game has

started, such objects are considered to be parts of the terrain, and may not be

moved or altered in any way. Older versions of the rules gave examples of what

was meant by such obstacles – pierre, sable, feuille (“a stone, some sand, a leaf”,

1980) – serait-ce la moindre pierre (“even the smallest stone”, 1953).

Things that hang above or over the terrain – tree branches, telephone wires,

electric lights, boulodrome ceilings – are parts of the terrain. They are not

obstacles, and they are not out-of-bounds. If a thrown boule hits an over-hanging

tree branch, it is (as far as the rules are concerned) no different than if it had hit a

rock (caillou) on the terrain and taken a weird bounce.


Things dead, null, and invalid

nul

nulle

In French, the word nul (or its feminine form, nulle) is an adjective. Its most

literal English translation is obviously “null”. It has been translated, with varying

degrees of success, as “dead”, “null”, and “void”.

In our opinion, the translation of nul should be context-dependent – nul should be

translated differently depending on whether it is describing a jack, a boule, a

point, or a mene. For compatibility with tradition, we translate nul as “dead”

when it is used to describe a boule or a jack. We never translate nul as “null” or

“void”.

le but est nul

la boule est nulle

the jack is dead

the boule is dead

When a boule or a jack dies, it is no longer part of the game, it is out of the game,

it disappears from the game. A dead boule should be picked up and physically

removed from the playing area. The death of the jack forces the end of a mene.

le but est bon

la boule est bonne

the jack is alive

the boule is alive

Bon and bonne mean “good”. When they are meant to convey the opposite of nul

(“dead”) we translate them as “alive” or “still alive”.

valable valid

“Valid” indicates that something is legal, acceptable, in accordance with the rules.

la mène est nulle the mene is scoreless

It sometimes happens that a mene ends without either team scoring any points.

This can happen, for example, when the jack is shot out-of-bounds while both

teams still have unplayed boules. When that happens, la mène est nulle – the

mene is scoreless.

point nul undecided point

Un point nul is a situation in which neither team has the point. The expression

point nul occurs only once, in Article 15. In the official FIPJP English translation, it

is incorrectly translated as “dead end”.

An undecided point situation can occur when the opposing teams' best boules are

both equidistant from the jack, or when the terrain is empty because all boules

have been shot out-of-bounds. The throw of the next boule usually resolves the

situation. When the point is still undecided at the end of a mene, the mene is

scoreless.


Miscellaneous terminology

pétanque petanque

In this translation, we treat “petanque” as an untranslatable technical term.

Following English spelling conventions, we remove the accent over the first letter

“e”.

The French word pétanque and the Spanish word petanca are derived from the

words pè tanca or pes tanca in Occitan, the old language of Provençe and

Catalonia. The words mean “feet fixed” and the general sense is “feet planted

firmly on the ground” (pieds plantés au sol) (not “feet together”, as is sometimes

incorrectly reported).

est autorisé is allowed

“is permitted” would be an equally good translation.

l’autorisation de

l’Arbitre

the permission of the umpire

sens du jeu

déroulement du jeu

line of play

line of play

The “line of play” is an imaginary line running through the jack and the center of

the throwing circle. Sens du jeu is used in Article 16 to specify where opposing

players may stand. Déroulement du jeu is used in Article 7 to specify that the circle

may be moved back along the previous mene's line of play.

labels homologués officially approved labels

labels (manufacturer + model number) registered (homologués) with the FIPJP

agréé

les fabricants agréés

approved

officially approved manufacturers

les parties en temps

limité

time-limited games

prévue specified

For example, les sanctions prévues à l’article 34 – “the penalties specified in article

34”

In the FIPJP's official English translation, prévue and its cognates are rendered

variously as “outlined”,“described”, “defined”, “provided for”, “set out”.

dispositions provisions

As in “... subject to the provisions of Article 9.”


contestation disagreement

For example Pour éviter toute contestation... – “To avoid all disagreement...”

contestation can be translated in a variety of ways as: questioning, dispute,

argument, contention, protest, disagreement.

In Article 8, we translate le droit de contester as “the right to challenge”. To

challenge the validity of a thrown jack is to request that the game be paused and

that a measurement be made to verify the validity of the thrown jack. The

measurement might be between the jack and the circle, an obstacle, a dead-ball

line, etc. Such a request must always be honored.

le jet the throw

as in le jet du but, “the throw of the jack”.

From the French verb jeter, “to throw”.

respectant comply with

Other translations say “respect” or “observe”.

Le joueur ne respectant pas... == Any player who does not comply with...

tâter une donnée to test a landing spot

The word tâter has the sense of “to sound out” or “to get a feel for”.

précédemment previously

précédemment carries the sense of previously, at an earlier time, before. In Article

10, we translate une boule jouée précédemment as “a boule played earlier” as a way

to capture the difference in wording between the 2010 version of the rule and the

2008 version – la boule jouée précédemment, “the boule previously played”.

Juniors

Seniors

les plus jeunes

Juniors

Seniors

younger players

In tournaments where there are competitions for different age classifications,

Junior tournaments are for players that turn 16 or 17 in the same year as the

competition. Seniors are players that are older than Juniors. “Younger players”

are players that are younger than Juniors.

As of spring 2015, the FIPJP age classifications are:

Benjamin under 9 years old within the year

Minim 10, 11, 12 years old within the year

Cadet 13, 14, 15 years old within the year

Junior 16, 17 years old within the year

Senior 18 and over within the year

Veteran over 60 within the year


Notes on individual rules

Article 2 – Cooking the boules

Article 2 – “Characteristics of approved boules” – discusses the requirements for “approved” boules

(boules agréées). Article 2, however, does not provide all of the requirements for certified (homologuées)

competition boules.

The FIPJP's full requirements are laid out in Conditions Requises Pour L’homologation De Boules De

Petanque De Competition, available for download from the FIPJP website at

http://www.fipjp.com/fr/Reglements.

As we write (October 2014) the current version of that document is dated March 2013.

That document is also available with our English translation (“Requirements for the Certification of

Competition Petanque Boules”) on our “Rules of Petanque” website at

http://petanquerules.wordpress.com/certification-of-boules/.

That document specifies the FIPJP's technical requirements for competition petanque boules, and lays

out the procedures that manufacturers must use to get official FIPJP certification for a product line of

competition boules. According to the Preamble, one of the goals of the document is

To insure the safety of players and spectators by providing binding standards for materials and

manufacturing processes, with the goal of avoiding any risk – in particular, any risk of being

hit by a piece of metal.

The document seems to take safety quite seriously. Section II, article 7 even specifies that the light coat

of paint that manufacturers use to protect carbon steel balls from rust must be tested.

These coatings will be impact-resistant, and the manufacturer must conduct tests to prove that

the products used generate no splinters that could be dangerous for users.

In keeping with the goal of safety, Section II, article 3 specifies a minimum and maximum permissible

hardness for boules – 35 HRC for a soft boule, and 55 HRC for a hard boule. HRC is the measure of a

boule's hardness on the Rockwell C hardness index.

When a manufacturer submits an application for certification for a new model of boule, he must

submit several pieces of information about it, including the material of which it is made and “the

hardness and its method of production, and its means of verification” (I, 5). Every boule must be

stamped with its manufacturer's name (or logo) and its model number. So an umpire (at least in

theory, by examining the manufacturer's application form on file with the FIPJP) should be able to

determine exactly how hard any given boule should be.

§§§

Steel's hardness is determined by the way it is “tempered”, that is, heat-treated. When steel is worked,

it is first heated to a very high temperature and then cooled very rapidly (quenched). This leaves it in

http://www.fipjp.com/fr/Reglements

http://petanquerules.wordpress.com/certification-of-boules/


a very hard, brittle condition. It is then reheated to a lower temperature and allowed to cool slowly

(tempered). Tempering removes some of the steel's excess hardness and brittleness, and makes it

softer, tougher, and more ductile. To achieve any specific level of softness, the steel must be heated to

a specific temperature, maintained at that temperature for a specific period of time, and then allowed

to cool slowly in still air.

This means – at least in theory – that if you know what you are doing, you can make a steel boule

softer by re-tempering it. So the situation is this –

(1) For safety reasons, the FIPJP requires manufacturers to make boules no softer than 35 HRC.

(2) A trained engineer might be able to re-temper a certified boule, after it left the factory, to make it

softer.

(3) There is a traditional belief that shooters want soft boules, to minimize rebound and increase

their chances of making carreaux.

(4) So on the theory that “if soft is good, softer is better”, a shooter might come up with the idea of

re-tempering the softest boule that he could buy, to make it even softer than the 35 HRC

permitted by the “Regulations for Certification”.

That's why Article 2 specifically forbids re-tempering a boule.

It is specifically forbidden to heat treat [boules] in order to modify the hardness given by the

manufacturer.


Article 2 – Stuffing the boules

Article 2 specifies that boules “must not be filled with lead or sand.” It would be clearer and more

precise if it said simply that boules must be hollow, and that it is forbidden to put anything inside a

boule after it has been manufactured.

And why would anyone want to put something inside a boule?

“Stuffed” boules (boules farcies) are more stable than normal boules. They give a pointer an advantage,

because when a stuffed boule is pointed, it tends to stay close to the donée rather than rolling away.

To gain this (illegal) advantage, players have been known to fill boules with a variety of substances –

lead, sand, heavy oil, mercury or cotton soaked in mercury, or iron filings. “Italian” style fillings

include bundles of rubber bands, and coil-type steel springs.

In the simplest case you can detect a stuffed boule simply by holding it up to your ear and shaking it.

If you can hear something rattling inside it, it has been stuffed. In big-money tournaments the

umpires often have special devices designed to detect stuffed boules. Two traditional devices are the

rail (rail) and the toboggan (slide).

The rail is a wooden board with a steel runner, with a metal spring at one end. A questionable boule is

placed in the middle of the unit and a sharp flick of a finger sends the boule toward the spring. The

spring pushes the boule back toward the other end of the rail. A normal boule will return all the way

back to its starting point, but a stuffed boule will not – it will stop on the way. This mimics the

bounce-suppression that a stuffed boule displays in actual play.

The slide is a board with a track in which there are two dos d'âne (literally, two donkey backs) – dips.

A boule is placed at one end of the slide and released. A normal boule will roll from one end of the

slide to the other, but a stuffed boule will slow down and stop in one of the dips.

There is also a newer device called La Boulhonnete (The Honest Boule). It consists of a round metal

disk about the size of a dinner plate, with a slight dip in the center. It is carefully leveled, and then the

boule is placed at the edge of the disk and released. The boule is timed as it rolls back and forth on

the disk. A stuffed boule will come to rest in much less time than a normal boule.


Article 5 – Dead-ball lines

A dead-ball line is a line that kills balls that cross it. Saying that a line is “a dead-ball line” is a concise

way of saying that, if a live boule or jack crosses that line, the boule or jack becomes dead.

The rules define the most important kind of dead-ball lines, global dead-ball lines, in a back-handed

way. Buried in Article 5, we find

A playing area contains an indefinite number of terrains whose boundaries are marked by strings...

These strings marking the boundaries of the different terrains are not dead-ball lines except for the lines

at the foot of lanes and the lines of the exterior lanes.

There are global and local dead-ball lines, and within the category of global dead-ball lines there are

exterior and interior dead-ball lines. (This is our classification. It does not appear in the FIPJP rules.)

That gives us three basic types of dead-ball lines.

(1) Exterior dead-ball lines coincide with the outer boundaries of the outer lanes. They are global – a

live boule or jack from any game is dead if it crosses any exterior dead-ball line.

Together, the exterior dead-ball lines around the playing area (aire de jeu) can be thought of as a

single boundary line – the dead-ball line.

(2) Interior dead-ball lines coincide with the short ends (the feet) of the lanes. They are global – a live

boule or jack from any game is dead if it crosses any interior dead-ball line.

(3) Local dead-ball lines are local in the sense that they apply only to a particular game played on a

particular lane. Each game has its own set of local dead-ball lines – a live boule or jack from that

particular game is dead if it crosses any of the game's local dead-ball lines.

In time-limited games, the lane's side boundaries are the game's local dead-ball lines. In non-

time-limited games, the local dead-ball lines are moved to the far side boundaries of any

neighboring lanes.

Until the 2008 rules revision, “the dead-ball line” was a separate line drawn around the outside of the

lanes at a distance of zero to four meters. It was usually drawn one meter from the lanes.

In the 2008 references to the dead-ball line were removed from Article 5. (The Umpires Committee

missed one reference — you can still see it in Article 9.) The umpires didn't realize that they had

actually removed all specifications of any sort of exterior dead-ball line!

The exterior dead-ball line was put back into Article 5 in 2010, but the rules no longer refer to it as the

dead-ball line and it is now coextensive with the outer boundaries of the outer lanes.


The diagram at the right shows a typical arrangement of lanes for a competition.

The dark lines around the outside of the playing area represent the exterior dead-ball lines.

Line A-B represents the interior dead-ball lines at the feet of the lanes.

The lines separating the lanes are called “guide lines”. Traditionally, they are marked by strings tightly strung between nails driven into the ground. Wooden side-boards (surrounds) around the playing area (to stop shot boules) should be at least 30cm outside of the exterior dead-ball lines. Fences or crowd-control barriers around the playing area should be located at least one meter outside of the exterior dead-ball lines.

The dead ball line is a obsolete concept

With the death in 2008 of the notion of the dead-ball line as something outside of, and separate from,

the playing area, the whole notion of dead-ball lines seems antiquated and cumbersome.

We could discard the concept of dead-ball lines altogether, and express all of the rules in terms of the

terrain autorisé. In English, we might call the terrain autorisé the game area.

The definition of the game area (terrain autorisé) for any given game is— the area where a boule can

travel and still be a part of the game, alive, bonne.

For a game played on a marked terrain—

1. The game area for a time-limited game is the assigned lane.

2. The game area for a non-time-limited game includes the assigned lane and any neighboring

lanes.

3. The jack may not be thrown to a position less than a meter from the edge of the game area.

4. A boule or jack is dead if it leaves the game area.

If we still want to use the expression “dead-ball line”, we can define “dead-ball line” as— a line that

indicates the edge or boundary of the game area.


Article 6 - What is a rigid circle?

Article 6 specifies that

Where a prefabricated (matérialisé) circle is used, it must be rigid (rigide)...

What kind of work is the word “rigid” doing in this

sentence? When it comes to a plastic circle, what is

the opposite of rigid? One of those folding plastic

circles?

Plastic circles were introduced around 2005. If you go

to YouTube and watch the 2004 final of the Petanque

Masters, you will see something interesting.

At about 13:15 Claudy Weibel carries a plastic circle

off of the terrain, while one of his team-mates brings

another plastic circle onto the opposite end of the

terrain. As Claudy carries it, the circle dangles from his hand like a piece of cooked spaghetti or a

bicycle inner tube.

In the next few seconds, you can see his team-mate at the far end of the terrain placing the other circle.

He doesn’t just throw it down and step into it, the way we do today. He lays it on the ground, then

fiddles with it, and then fiddles with it some more, until he can get it to lay flat in a proper circular

shape.

This must have been an early prototype of a plastic circle. This is what the opposite of rigid looks like.

You can see it again at about 22:33, and get a nice clear view at about 34:52. It really is limp and floppy.

https://petanquerules.wordpress.com/2015/06/10/what-is-a-rigid-circle/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeoZ3ZBKZEY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeoZ3ZBKZEY


Article 8 - Challenging the jack

Consider the following three cases.

CASE 1 — Team A throws the jack. Team A then points the first boule. The boule hits the jack

and pushes it to a distance of more than 10 meters from the circle. Can team B challenge the

jack?

CASE 2 — Team A throws the jack. The player says “Hmmm. What do you think? Too long?”

Team B says “Looks good to me.” Team A points the first boule. It is very good. Team B begins

to think that the jack may be long after all. Can team B challenge the jack?

CASE 3 — Team A throws the jack. Team A then points the first boule. Team A then begins to

have doubts — perhaps the jack was thrown too long. Can team A challenge the jack?

Such questions regularly come up in play, and on online petanque forums. What they have in

common is that they all involve the interpretation of a single sentence in Article 8.

Si, après le jet du but, une première boule est jouée, l’adversaire a encore le droit de contester sa position

réglementaire.

If after the throw of the jack, a first boule is played, the opponent still has the right to challenge

the validity of its [the jack’s] position.

Before we try to decide how to interpret this rule in these problem cases, let’s define some terminology,

and look at the rule itself and its rationale.

Some useful terminology

• Team A is the team that throws the jack. The opposing team is team B.

• A thrown jack is a jack that occupies its current location because it was thrown there at the

beginning of the mene.

• A moved jack is a jack that (by being struck or pushed by a boule) was displaced from some other

location to its current location.

What does it mean to “challenge the jack”?

To “challenge the jack” is simply to request that the game be paused and a measurement be made to

verify the validity of the position of the thrown jack. We might want to measure the distance between

the jack and the circle, the jack and an obstacle, or the jack and a dead-ball line.

What is the purpose of this rule?

There are two reasons for this rule — one practical and one formal.

Some players like to play very fast — they like to throw the jack and then immediately throw the first

boule. Sometimes they throw the first boule so quickly that the other team has no time to evaluate the

jack’s location or to raise a challenge. So the practical reason for the rule is that it gives team B a chance

to challenge the thrown jack even when team A throws the first boule very quickly after the jack.

https://petanquerules.wordpress.com/2015/04/23/challenging-the-jack/


The formal reason is this. When a set of rules gives a person or team certain rights, the rules should

also specify the conditions under which that person or team gives up or loses those rights. This is

what Article 8 is doing. It specifies that—

1. Either team has the right to challenge the jack before it throws its first boule.

2. In the act of throwing its first boule, a team gives up (or loses) the right to challenge the jack.

A team gives up its right to challenge the jack when it throws its first boule. Thus team A may

challenge the jack immediately after having thrown it, but not after having thrown their first boule.

Similarly, team B may challenge the jack before they throw their first boule, but not after that.

Now let’s look at the first of our problem cases. This case has caused an immense amount of confusion

and disagreement among players and umpires alike.

CASE 1 — Team A throws the jack. Team A then points the first boule. The boule hits the jack and pushes it to a

distance of more than 10 meters from the circle. Can team B challenge the jack?

Some umpires will say that NO, team B cannot challenge the jack, and give good reasons for their

decision. Other umpires will say YES, team B CAN challenge the jack, and also give good reasons.

• Umpires in the UK will probably say NO, and cite the ruling by English international umpire Mike

Pegg. See “Coche moved by the first boule of an end”.

• Umpires in the USA will probably say YES, and cite the ruling by Joe Martin, FPUSA National

Umpire. See his “Ask The Umpire” column on page 14 of theFPUSA 2014/2015 annual.

• The majority of umpires in France will probably say YES. This is reported by Gilles Souef on page

163 of his book The Winning Trajectory.

So let’s look at the NO and YES opinions.

NO, team B cannot challenge the jack

Reasoning

The basis for any challenge to the jack is the set of requirements for a valid throw of the jack as laid

out in Article 7. Article 7 makes it quite clear that those requirements are requirements for

a thrown jack (le but lancé par un joueur), not a moved jack. If the position of the jack was marked

immediately after it was thrown, then team B can challenge the validity of the thrown jack, and the

thrown jack’s validity can be determined by measuring to the marked position. But without marks on

the ground, team B has no grounds to challenge the jack’s thrown position. The position of

the moved jack is of ABSOLUTELY NO SIGNIFICANCE AT ALL in determining the validity of the

position of the thrown jack. There are therefore no grounds for challenging the jack, or any reason to

measure to the jack’s current position. Team B may NOT challenge the jack.

http://www.southerncountiespetanque.org.uk/umpire.html

http://www.usapetanque.org/Annual2014_15.pdf

http://www.petanque-apprentissage.com/p/the-english-petanque-book.html


YES, team B can challenge the jack

Reasoning

This opinion rests on two important interpretations of the rules.

ONE — There is no distinction in Article 8 between a thrown jack and a moved jack. Article 8

doesn’t say anything about challenging the position of the thrown jack. Article 8 says that team

B can challenge the position of the jack at any time before team B throws its own first boule. So

it makes no difference whether the jack has or has not been moved by the first boule. Team B

has the right to challenge it.

TWO — When nothing has been marked, the only basis for a decision is the situation that

exists on the ground. (See Article 11, which requires that the prior position of a boule or jack be

marked for any claim to be accepted.) Because there are no marks on the ground, the decision-

maker(s) must proceed as if the jack had never been moved, and as if its current location is the

one to which it was thrown. If the jack is currently more than 10 meters from the circle, the

game must proceed as if the jack had been thrown long — the jack is thrown again and the first

boule is replayed.

TOGETHER these two rather tricky assertions boil down to one clear and simple rule.

If the position of the thrown jack has been neither marked nor measured, and the thrown jack

is moved by the first boule, the jack’s moved position is treated as its thrown position.

From this simple rule, it follows that YES, team B can challenge the jack. And the challenge is resolved

by measuring to the current location of the jack.

What is the RIGHT interpretation?

As a practical matter, the YES opinion seems preferable to the NO opinion.

In CASE 1, the NO opinion offers us helplessness in the face of the Unknowable. And it deprives team

B of their legitimate right to challenge the jack. To a citizen of a democratic country, depriving

someone of their right to protest feels very unfair and A Very Bad Thing indeed.

The YES opinion, in contrast, offers a simple resolution procedure for what the NO opinion treats as

unresolvable. With the YES opinion, we simply measure. The worst that can be said about the YES

opinion is that in the rare occurrences of CASE 1, the players must rethrow the jack and the first boule

rather than simply carrying on. But surely starting over again, when team B hasn’t even thrown its

first boule yet, must be considered a very minor inconvenience.

As for the RIGHT opinion… who knows? I don’t know. When the rules are unclear and certified

umpires disagree, What is Truth?


What can we do?

CASE 1, as we’ve seen, is difficult to deal with. It would be good if we could prevent CASE 1s from

ever occurring in the first place. What can be done to keep such situations from happening?

The answer that umpires always give is — The position of the jack should always be marked after it has been

thrown.

That’s sound advice of course, but perhaps a bit unrealistic given the way that people actually play

petanque. Other suggestions include —

• When your team throws the jack, play in a courteous manner. After throwing the jack, pause. Ask

the other team if it looks OK to them, and wait for the answer. This gives the other team a chance to

challenge the jack if they want to.

• If you see that the opposing team is in the habit of throwing the jack and then quickly throwing

their first boule, what can you do? If you’re on friendly terms, you can simply talk to them and

express your concern. They may not have been aware of what they were doing, and will change

their behavior. If you’re on less-friendly terms, you can talk to the opposing team, explain your

concern, and request that the position of the thrown jack always be marked. You’re certainly within

your rights to do so — it is what all umpires recommend.

• Desperate situations call for desperate solutions. You may have to follow the umpires’ advice after

all. When your team throws the jack, always mark the jack’s position.

CASE 2 — Team A throws the jack. The player says “Hmmm. What do you think? Too long?” Team B says

“Looks good to me.” Team A points the first boule. It is very good. Team B begins to think that the jack may be

long after all. Can team B challenge the jack?

The correct answer is YES, team B still has the right to challenge the jack.

The captain of team B may have said something like “It looks good to me.” But legally that statement

is merely the expression of a personal opinion about the validity of the jack, and an indication that at

this time he is not going to challenge the jack. It does NOT count as waiving his team’s right to

challenge the jack.

Richard Powell makes this clear in his memo “Coche moved by the first boule of an end”, which I

paraphrase here—

Team B has the right to contest the validity of the thrown jack at any time until they play their own

first boule. This is true even if team B gave some indication (by word or gesture) of accepting it before

team A threw its first boule. This right has to be respected, even if it feels like unsporting behavior on

the part of team B. If there is any doubt, it is best to avoid potential irritation by properly measuring

and agreeing the validity of the jack’s position before a boule is thrown.

This kind of behavior can be shocking to team A. For team B to say “It looks good to me” and then

turn around and challenge the jack certainly looks like bad sportsmanship. And this is especially true

if team B seems to be challenging the jack only because team A’s first boule was good, and would not

challenge it if team A had pointed badly.

http://www.southerncountiespetanque.org.uk/umpire.html


Again, nobody likes to see this kind of thing happen. What can be done to prevent it?

Well, when your team is team B, simply don’t do it yourself.

If the opposing team is doing it, and you’re on friendly terms, you can talk to them and express your

concerns. If you’re on less-friendly terms, you have two options.

• You can simply accept the fact that although you may dislike such behavior, and may even

consider it to be unsporting, the other team is not breaking the rules. Accept the fact that a certain

amount of gamesmanship is part of the game. Don’t let it distract you. STAY CALM AND CARRY

ON as they say.

• You can preempt challenges by the opposing team. Whenever you think there might be the

slightest doubt about the validity of the thrown jack, challenge it yourself and get it measured.

CASE 3 — Team A throws the jack. Team A then points the first boule. Team A then begins to have doubts —

perhaps the jack was thrown too long. Can team A challenge the jack?

The correct answer here is NO.

As we said earlier, “in the act of throwing its first boule, a team gives up (or loses) the right to

challenge the jack.” Team A has thrown its first boule. Its window of opportunity for challenging the

jack has closed.


Article 9 - What to do if the jack is not visible after the last boule is thrown

This question was originally posed, in a slightly different

form, by Florian Knispel, on petanque.org in 2007. The

answer was provided by Guy Therrien.

What happens if the last boule in the mene pushes

the jack into a position where it is not visible from

the circle (e.g. behind a tree)? Is it dead, as it would

be if there were boules left to be played? Or should

we proceed to calculate the score from the situation

on the ground, because no one has any more boules

to play, so it doesn’t make any difference whether or

not the jack is visible from the circle?

The correct answer is — the jack is dead. The basis for the answer can be found in Article 9 —

Article 9 – Dead Jack during a mene

The jack is dead in the following 7 cases: …

When, located within the in-bounds area, the displaced jack is not visible from the circle, as specified in

Article 7.

The argument, basically, is— the rules are the rules. The rules say that if the jack is shot out of sight, it

is dead. The rules don’t say that the jack is dead unless there are no more boules left to be played. So that is

the end of the story. The jack is dead.

This answer may not be intuitively obvious, but if you think about it, it makes sense.

We know that deliberately killing the jack by shooting it out-of-bounds is a legitimate strategy. Trying

to kill the jack by shooting it out-of-bounds with your last boule is of course a risky strategy. But it is

perfectly legitimate.

Now suppose that our game is being played on an unmarked terrain, in a park. There are no

boundaries, so it isn’t possible to kill the jack by shooting it out-of-bounds. You could try shooting it

more than 20 meters from the jack, but that might not be an option. You decide that your best bet is to

use the trees.

In these circumstances, surely it is just as legitimate to deliberately kill the jack by using your last

boule to shoot it out-of-sight, as it would be to shoot it out-of-bounds on a marked terrain.

And for that to be the case, it must be true that a jack that is shot out-of-sight is always dead, even it it

was shot out-of-sight by the last boule in the mene.

Figure 1- Petanqe jack (hidden by tree)

https://petanquerules.wordpress.com/2015/07/25/jack-not-visible-after-last-boule/

http://petanque.org/forum/postings/2557


Article 11 - When a leaf hides the jack

A leaf is hiding the jack. Should we pick up the leaf, or declare the jack dead?

The rules of petanque have a hard time dealing with leaves on the terrain. Consider the following two cas-

es. They are very similar, and they both involve leaves.

CASE A — a leaf blows onto the terrain and hides the jack. What do you do?

Answer— you remove the leaf and continue the game.

CASE B — there is a leaf on the terrain. The jack is hit and rolls behind this leaf, so that the jack is

now hidden by the leaf. What do you do?

Answer— you declare the jack dead.

In CASE A you cite Article 11 — “If, during a mene, the jack is suddenly hidden by a leaf of a tree or a

piece of paper, these objects are removed.”

In CASE B you cite Article 9 — “If a jack is still in-bounds of the terrain, but cannot be seen from the circle,

it is dead.”

[The French expression opiner à means “to consent to”. So the adverb inopinément in Article 11,

which I’ve translated as “suddenly”, carries a suggestion of something that happens quickly and

without one’s consent.]


When we think about all of the kinds of things that can happen during a game of petanque, it’s helpful to

distinguish two different types of objects.

Game objects are things that can legally cause physical events in the game. Game objects include

the jack, the boules, the players, and the terrain.

Foreign agents are things that can cause physical events in the game, but not legally. A foreign

agent is anything that blows, rolls, flies, falls, bounces, or walks onto (or across) the terrain and in-

terferes with the game.

Here is a funny example of a foreign agent— une enquiquineuse, “a troublemaker”.

A leaf that blows onto the terrain and hides the jack is a foreign agent. The wind that moves a stationary

jack is a foreign agent. Anything external to the game – an animal, a child, a bouncing football, a boule

from another game – that comes onto the terrain and interferes with the game is a foreign agent. Spectators,

players, and even umpires are foreign agents if they interfere with a game by stopping a moving ball, or

moving a stopped ball.

When a foreign agent makes a physical event happen, whatever the foreign agent did or caused to happen

should be undone, if possible. After giving the example of leaves or pieces of paper blown onto the terrain

by the wind, Article 11 goes on to say

If a stopped jack comes to be displaced, because of the wind or the slope of the ground for example,

or accidentally by the umpire, a player, a spectator, a boule or a jack coming from another game, an

animal or any moving object, it is returned to its original position, provided that it had been

marked.

So it’s easy to know what to do when a foreign agent, a leaf, blows onto the terrain and hides the jack. You

remove it.


The French Federation of Petanque (FFPJP ) publishes a document called Code d’Arbitrage — the “Umpire’s

Handbook”. The discussion of Article 11 in the Handbook is interesting because it distinguishes between

what I’ve called CASE A and CASE B.

Si en cours de mène, le but est masqué inopinément par une feuille d’arbre ou un morceau de papier,

enlever cet objet. Si le but est déplacé sous un tas de feuilles et devient invisible, il est nul.

Remove the leaf: the jack is good Dead jack

If, during a mene, the jack is suddenly hidden by a leaf of a tree or a piece of paper, remove

the object. If the jack is knocked into a pile of leaves and is no longer visible, it is dead.

Note that the first sentence is not a direct quote from the rules. If it were, the last clause would be ces objets

sont enlevés (“the objects [plural] are picked up”), not enlever cet objet (“pick up the object [singlular]“).

What’s good about this discussion is that it points out the difference between CASE A and CASE B. What’s

unfortunate is the way that it tries to convey the difference in pictures.

When thinking about situations like these, it helps to ask — “In this case, what is moving and what is not?”

In CASE A it is the leaves that are moving; they are blown onto the terrain. The jack has not moved.

In CASE B it is the jack that is moving; it is knocked behind or into the leaves. The leaves were on

the terrain at the beginning of the game. They have not moved.

In CASE A the moving object was a foreign agent, the leaf.

In CASE B the moving object was a game object, the jack.

A static picture (basically, a snapshot) can’t show the important difference between CASE A and CASE B

— the difference in the object that moved. In the pictures, the only visible difference is in the number of

leaves. Looking at them one might get the impression that if only one leaf is involved, the leaf should be

removed. But if two leaves are involved, the jack is dead.

That would be a silly way to interpret the rules, of course. But in a question on International Umpire Mike

Pegg’s “Ask the Umpire” Facebook group, it was reported that French trainers from the FIPJP, giving an

umpire training course in Bangkok, were asked what should be done if TWO pieces of paper were to blow

https://petanquerules.wordpress.com/commentaries/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/128791213885003/permalink/260979920666131/



onto the terrain and mask the jack. The trainers insisted that Article 11 permitted the removal of one – and

absolutely no more than one – leaf or piece of paper. "Are there two pieces of paper masking the jack? Then

they cannot be picked up, and the jack is dead."

The students repeatedly asked the trainers pointed questions in order to be certain that nothing was being

lost in translation and that the students were correctly understanding what the trainers were saying to

them.

It’s hard to know what to make of the bizarre assertions of the French trainers. The best explanation that I

can muster is that the trainers simply misunderstood the pictures – and the point being made – in their

own Umpires Handbook.


Article 31 - Consulting with the team coach

Periodically, questions appear on petanque forums about how, and whether, a team can consult with

its coach during a game.

Before we get too deep into this topic, let’s immediately settle two basic points.

First, players ARE allowed to confer with their coach during a game, and coaches ARE allowed to

offer advice to their players. HOWEVER, there are appropriate procedures for doing this, which we’ll

discuss in a minute.

Second, in competitions on marked terrains the only people allowed on the terrain during a game are

the players and the umpires. Coaches, like other spectators, are not allowed on the game terrain. This

rule is often simply assumed, although sometimes it is explicitly written into tournament rules.

Sometimes the coach is allowed to sit inside the crowd-control barriers. More frequently, coaches,

managers, and alternate team members have a special area reserved for them in the spectators' area.

In this tournament, the competition organizers have allowed coaches to sit inside the steel

crowd-control barriers, as long as they stay outside of the wooden surround and don’t come onto

the terrain proper.

The FIPJP rules have nothing specific to say about coach-player consultation. The behavior of coaches,

therefore, is governed by the same rules that govern spectator behavior in general. Similarly, the

behavior of players toward their coach is governed by the rules that govern player behavior in general.

Article 16 – Behavior of players and spectators during a game

During the regulation time given to a player to throw his boule the spectators and players must observe

total silence. The opponents must not walk, nor gesticulate, nor do anything that could disturb the

player.

https://petanquerules.wordpress.com/2015/07/23/consulting-with-the-team-coach/


This means that while a player is throwing, coaches, spectators, and the other players must stay

motionless and quiet. At other times they should maintain a reasonable calm and quiet, and not do

anything by word or action to distract the opposing players or to interfere with the smooth progress of

the game.

Not to put too fine a point on it, this means that while one player is throwing, the other players cannot

shout across the terrain to ask their coach for advice, or walk across the terrain to consult with him.

And of course the obverse is also true — a coach cannot shout instructions or advice at his players.

Players and coaches should NEVER attempt to communicate by gesturing wildly in the other’s

direction. If one or more of the players wish to communicate with their coach, they should wait until it

is their team’s turn to throw, then walk over to where the coach is sitting and talk quietly.

While they are conversing, player and coach should remember the one-minute rule — the player is

allowed only one minute to throw his boule. That means that players and coaches must keep their

consultations short and to the point. Typically, the first violation of the one-minute rule will earn a

player a yellow card and a warning from the umpire, but not a penalty. No big deal. But players need

to be careful about gross or repeated violations of the one-minute rule — that can earn them more

serious penalties.

Some players are confused about whether or not they are allowed to confer with their coach, because

they remember Article 31, which says that—

No player may absent himself from a game or leave the game terrains without the permission

of the Umpire.

Players sometimes misunderstand this rule as saying that, during a game, players can’t step outside

the boundaries of the terrain in order to walk over and talk to their coach.

That is a mistake — that’s not what Article 31 is about. Players are of course allowed to step outside

the boundaries of the terrain. In fact, when a player isn’t throwing, standing outside of the terrain

boundary is the best place to be. If a boule or jack unexpectedly flies across the terrain and hits a

player, there will be no problem — the boule or jack will have gone out-of-bounds before being

stopped.

Article 31 has nothing to do with stepping outside of a terrain to consult with your coach. As

international umpire Mike Pegg says

The rule about leaving the terrain/lane is not designed to prevent a player stepping out of the

lane to talk to his coach who is standing or sitting at the end of the lane. The rule is designed to

deal with players that move away from the lane or the playing area to get a coffee, have a

smoke, go to the toilet, etc.

The bottom line is that players definitely ARE allowed to walk over to the edge of the playing area and

confer with their coach. They just need to behave appropriately when they do it.




Rules missing or vague

How are points scored?

One of the defects of the rules is that they never specify how points are scored!

Article 28 is probably meant to specify how points are scored in any given situation, but it is written so

badly that it actually specifies only how points are scored in equidistant-boules situations.

If Article 28 were properly written, it would say that after both teams have thrown all their boules –

• The team with the boule closest to the jack scores as many points as it has boules closer to the jack

than the opposing team's closest boule.

• If there are no boules left in-bounds, then the mene is scoreless.

• If the best boules of the two teams are at equal distances from the jack, then the mene is scoreless.


When does a mene start? When does a mene end?

There are two situations in which it is necessary to know the precise definitions of the start and end of

a mene.

1. In time-limited games, when you hear the sound of the whistle (bell, whatever) that signals the end

of the time-limit. At that point you may need to decide whether the mene currently in progress has

finished, or whether a new mene has begun yet.

2. When a player arrives late. If a mene has already started and is currently in progress, a late-arriving

player must wait until the end of the mene before he can join the game.

The rules never actually specify the point when a mene finishes. Sometimes they talk as if a mene ends

when the last boule has been thrown, and sometimes they talk as if a mene ends when the points have been

agreed. The general practice is to use the rule –

• A mene finishes when the points have been agreed.

The rules do specify when a mene starts. The specification is in Article 32.

• A mene starts with the successful throw of a live jack.

Suppose that a game is being played in a time-limited format. Mene 3 has just finished. To begin mene 4, a

player throws the jack, but his throw is not successful (he might, for instance, throw the jack too far). Before

he can attempt another throw of the jack, the time-limit is announced – a whistle is blown, a bell is rung,

whatever. In this case, mene 4 is NOT considered to have begun because the jack has not yet been thrown

successfully.

For time-limited games tournament organizers often change the rules about when a mene starts. It is not

unusual for a tournament organizer to specify a special rule to be in effect for the tournament. He might

specify any one of the following rules.

1. A mene is considered to start after the first boule of the mene has been thrown.

2. After the first mene, a mene is considered to start immediately after the last boule has been thrown.

3. After the first mene, a mene is considered to start immediately after the points have been decided,

at the end of the previous mene.


The “landing strip” for a thrown jack

There are several distance-related constraints on the validity of a thrown jack. There is a constraint on

the jack’s distance from an obstacle, on the distance from the circle, and (for games played on marked

terrains) on the distance from out-of-bounds areas (dead-ball lines). When thinking about this last

constraint, I find the concept of a “landing strip” helpful—

the landing strip — the area inside the boundaries of a marked terrain where a thrown jack can land

and be valid.

Article 7 specifies that

the [thrown] jack must be a minimum of 1 meter from any obstacle and from the nearest

boundary of an out-of-bounds area.

This naturally generates questions like this—

We’re playing on a marked terrain that is 3 meters wide. Does the one-meter rule in Article 7

mean that the only place where we can legally throw the jack is into a thin strip— one meter

wide— running down the middle of the terrain?

A short answer to this question is “Yes”. But that would be too simplistic. The best answer is more

complicated.

Before we begin, we need to distinguish guide lines from dead-ball lines.

When we use strings to divide a large playing area into a grid of marked terrains (lanes, pistes), the

strings are only guide lines — they serve to indicate the edges of the terrains, but nothing more.

Some of the guide lines also serve as dead-ball lines — lines that kill any live boule or jack that

crosses them. The guide lines at the foot (short end) of the terrains are dead-ball lines, and the guide

lines around the outer edge of the playing area are also dead-ball lines.

Now remember that Article 7 doesn’t say anything about the jack’s distance from a guide line. The

constraint is on the jack’s distance from a dead-ball line (“boundary of an out-of-bounds area”). If you

have a backyard playing area that contains only one terrain, then all four of your boundary lines will

be dead-ball lines. Your landing strip will be a narrow strip running up the middle of the terrain. The

cross-hatched area in the diagram of terrain A, below, shows your landing strip.

https://petanquerules.wordpress.com/2015/07/09/landing-strip/


But if you are playing in a tournament or a boulodrome, and there is a large playing area marked off

into a grid of terrains, the situation is different.

In the diagram, above, look at terrains B and D. On one side they have a dead-ball line; on the other

side is a neighboring terrain (C). So each of them has a landing strip (the cross-hatched area) that is

lopsided. On one side, the landing strip has to stay one meter from the dead-ball line that encloses the

playing area. But on the other side is a neighboring terrain, and on that side the landing strip can go

right up to the edge of the neighboring terrain.

Note that terrain C, in the middle, isn’t bordered by a dead-ball line on either side. Its landing strip

extends the full width of the terrain, and goes right up to the strings separating terrain C from the

neighboring terrains.

So those are the rules.

As you can imagine, there are situations where these rules aren’t really appropriate — in your own

back yard for instance, or in a boulodrome or tournament where space is limited and the lanes are

narrow. In such situations, what are your options?

Remember that the international rules (for better or worse) are written primarily with international-

level competitions in mind — they are the rules that the FIPJP chooses to use when it conducts the

world champs. And at world championships, of course, terrains are required to be at least four meters

wide.

That’s what the FIPJP does at world championships. But if you aren’t playing at world championships,

you don’t need to play by world championship rules. Within reasonable limits, you are free to modify

the rules, and to adapt them to your own local conditions. This means that a club can modify the one-

meter rule to adapt it to their local boulodrome, a tournament organizer can modify it for use during a

particular tournament, and so on.

With this understanding, a number of European nations, clubs, and competitions modify the one-

meter rule to make it a half-meter rule — a thrown jack must be a minimum of half a meter from the

nearest dead-ball line. And of course they make sure that all players are aware of that modified rule.

If they can do it, you can too. Just be sure that everyone is aware of, and on board with, the change.

Before we leave this subject, now might be a good time to mention something that is NOT in the

official rules.

There is no rule that prohibits throwing the jack close to a guide line that separates two neighboring

terrains, or close to another jack. So the situation in this picture — two jacks thrown close together

near a guide line — is perfectly legal.


If such a situation occurred in real life, of course, one or both of the teams would pick up their jack

and throw it again. Technically, however, the rules would not allow them to do that — they would

have no legal grounds for doing it.

With this in mind, your club or competition might consider adopting a local rule saying something

like this—

If a thrown jack lands within two meters of a jack in play in another game, the throwing team may

optionally choose to re-throw the jack without loss of one of its three allowed throws.

Such a rule doesn’t force anybody to do anything. But it allows a player to pick up and rethrow a jack

when its proximity to another jack makes that an appropriate thing to do.

Without such a rule, the appropriate action would be to apply Article 12. The players on one terrain

would mark their jack’s position and pick it up. They would let the game on the other terrain finish its

mene. Then they would replace their jack and finish their own mene.

Additional note

In a comment on Facebook, Justin Bo Johns points out that in timed competitions, all guide lines are

considered to be dead-ball lines. So in timed competitions, all terrains have the same landing strip as

terrain A in our diagram, even if they are part of a larger grid of marked terrains.


Picking up the circle too soon

What should we do when a player, after playing his last

boule, inadvertently picks up the throwing circle before

the mene is complete?

The answer comes from Jean-Claude Dubois, President of

the Commission Nationale d’Arbitrage (CNA) — the National

Umpires Committee of the French Petanque Federation

(FFPJP). Here is my translation of his answer. You can read

the original (in French) HERE. It is also posted HERE with a

date of September 26, 2012.

Note that in this context “before the mene is complete”

means “before all boules have been thrown”.

WHEN A PLAYER, AFTER PLAYING HIS LAST BOULE, INADVERTENTLY PICKS UP THE THROW-

ING CIRCLE BEFORE THE MENE IS COMPLETE.

This can happen in two different situations.

The circle was marked

The circle is put back in its place, and the player (partner or opponent) who still has the unplayed boule

plays it to finish the mene.

The circle was not marked

Here again, this can happen in two different situations.

The unplayed boule belongs to one of the player’s partners. In this case, the unplayed boule is dead.

The unplayed boule belongs to one of the opponents. In this case, the opponent should put the throwing

circle back in its place, even if this can be done only approximately, and the opponent plays his ball to fin-

ish the mene.

In all cases, the offending player receives a warning.

The same rules apply if there are still several balls left to play.

Jean-Claude Dubois

Président de la CNA

http://www.ffpjp-cd17.com/uploads/Espace%20Arbitrage/Cas%20du%20cercle%20enleve.pdf

http://www.educnaute-infos.com/article-arbitrage-cas-particulier-et-nouveautes-110570561.html


Picking up a boule too soon

Sometimes a player picks up a boule too soon. It happens all the time. Given the frequency with which

it happens, it’s amazing how much confusion there is about how to deal with it.[1]

In order to cut through the fog, we must distinguish two different ways in which one can pick up a

boule too soon. And to do that, we must take note of two different events that occur during the

progress of a mene.

1. The first event is the throwing of the last boule. This is the point when all boules have been

thrown.

2. The second event is the completion of the agreement of points. This is the point when the two

teams have reached agreement about which team won the mene and how many points were

scored.

Keeping these events in mind, we can distinguish—

1. CASE A — A boule was picked up before all boules had been thrown.

2. CASE B — A boule was picked up after all boules had been thrown, but before completion of the

agreement of points.

CASE A (a boule is picked up before all boules have been thrown) is covered by Article 21, which

specifies that—

If a stationary boule is displaced by the wind or slope of the ground, it is put back in its place. The

same applies to any boule accidentally displaced by a player….

A boule that is picked up by a player before all boules have been thrown is considered to have been

accidentally moved by the player. The corrective action specified in Article 21 is to put the boule back

https://petanquerules.wordpress.com/2015/04/28/picking-up-a-boule-too-soon/



in its original place.

CASE B (a boule is picked up after all boules have been thrown, but before completion of the

agreement of points) is partially covered by Article 26, which specifies that—

At the end of a mène, any boule picked up before the agreement of points is dead.

So the corrective action specified in Article 26 is to declare the picked-up boule to be dead. (Note the

opening phrase “At the end of a mène.” It tells us that Article 26 is dealing with a situation that occurs

after, and not before, the last boule was thrown.)

Article 26 is quite reasonable if we assume that the boule in question is picked up by the team to

which it belongs. The problem is that Article 26 is reasonable only if we assume that. Article 26 would

be quite unreasonable if we interpreted it as permitting a player on team A to kill a boule belonging to

team B, simply by picking it up. (Part if the reason that I'm writing this note, however, is that Article

26 actually has been interpreted that way, and by an official umpire at that!)

This leaves us with a difficult question. If, during the agreement of points, a member of team A picks

up a boule belonging to team B, what do we do?

Since Article 26 doesn’t tell us, I think the most reasonable thing to do is to follow Article 21 and put

the boule back in its original place.

The problem here is that the rules are obsessive about putting something back in its original

place only if that original place was marked. If the original place was not marked, the thing should be

left where it is.

So, should we be torturing ourselves with the question...

What do we do if an opponent’s boule was picked up, and its original place was not marked?

I think not. I think that, in a lot of places, you have to interpret the rules as if they have the unwritten

provision “Do the best that you can”. When Article 21 says, for instance,

If a stationary boule is displaced by the wind or slope of the ground, it is put back in its place.

it doesn’t say anything about whether or not the original place was marked. What it is saying in effect

is “Put it back in its place. Do the best that you can.”

So if you’re worried about the question “What do we do if, during the agreement of points, a member

of team A picks up a boule belonging to team B?” I think the only answer that you will find in the

rules is simply—

Put it back in its place. Do the best that you can.

DISCLAIMER

To avoid possible confusion (see the report by Gary Jones, below), let me add a note about how

“official” this interpretation is.

In this particular matter, the official FIPJP rules provide NO clear-cut answers to our questions. In

short, there is no official interpretation of the rules. If there WAS an official interpretation, there would

be no controversy and we wouldn’t be having this conversation. The bottom line is that the FIPJP rules

are badly written, umpires differ in the way that they interpret them, and in an umpired competition,


the only thing that you can safely predict about the umpire’s decision is that it will be final.

The interpretation outlined here is my proposal for a reasonable interpretation. The basis for this

interpretation is the reasoning that I’ve laid out in the body of this post, and the reasoning outlined in

the post on general principles for applying the rules. In addition, I will invoke the recent “official”

ruling by Jean-Claude Dubois, on picking up the circle too soon. Note his unusually common-sense

specification that “the opponent should put the throwing circle back in its place, even if this can be

done only approximately.”

https://petanquerules.wordpress.com/2014/05/17/general-principles/

https://petanquerules.wordpress.com/2014/10/26/picking-up-the-circle-too-soon/


What should be done if a player picks up a boule too soon?

Sometimes a player picks up a boule too soon. When that happens, what should be done?

In this connection, we will note two different events that occur during a mene.

• The throwing of the last boule. This is the point when all boules have been thrown.

• The completion of the agreement of points. This is the point when the two teams have reached

agreement about which team won the mene and how many points were scored.

And we will note two different ways in which a boule can be picked up too soon.

• CASE A — A boule is picked up before all boules have been thrown.

• CASE B — A boule is picked up after all boules have been thrown, but before completion of the

agreement of points.

§§§

CASE A (a boule is picked up before all boules have been thrown) is covered by Article 21 —

If a stationary boule is displaced by the wind or slope of the ground, it is put back in its place. The

same applies to any boule accidentally displaced by a player…

A boule that is picked up by a player before all boules have been thrown is considered to have been

accidentally moved by the player. The corrective action specified in Article 21 is to put the boule back in its

original place.

§§§

CASE B (a boule is picked up after all boules have been thrown, but before completion of the agreement of

points) is partially covered by Article 26 —

At the end of a mène, any boule picked up before the agreement of points is dead.

Note that Article 26 is clearly dealing with a situation that occurs “at the end of a mène” – after the last boule

has been thrown.

The corrective action specified in Article 26 is to declare the picked-up boule to be dead.

§§§

Article 26 is quite reasonable if the boule in question is picked up by the team to which it belongs, and

quite unreasonable if it is interpreted as permitting a player on one team to kill a boule belonging to the

other team, simply by picking it up.

This leaves us with a difficult question. If, during the agreement of points, a member of one team picks up

a boule belonging to the other team, what should we do?

Since Article 26 doesn’t tell us, the most reasonable thing to do is to follow Article 21 and put the boule

back in its original place.


The problem here is that the rules are obsessive about putting something back in its original place only if

that original place was marked. If the original place was not marked, the rules typically specify that the

boule or jack should be left where it is.

So… Should we torture ourselves with the question — What do we do if an opponent’s boule was picked

up, and its original place was not marked?

I think not. I think that, in a lot of places, you have to interpret the rules as if they have the unwritten

provision “Do the best that you can”. Consider Article 21, for instance.

If a stationary boule is displaced by the wind or slope of the ground, it is put back in its place.

Notice that it doesn’t say anything about whether or not the original place was marked. What it says in

effect is “Put it back in its place. Do the best that you can.”

So if you’re worried about the question “What do we do if, during the agreement of points, a member of

team A picks up a boule belonging to team B?” I think the only answer that you will find in the rules is

simply—

Put it back in its place. Do the best that you can.

How NOT to apply Article 26

There have been cases where an umpire has applied Article 26 in the following ways.

1. Before the agreement of points (CASE B) a boule is picked up by a player of the opposing team. The

umpire declared that the boule that was picked up is dead.

2. Before all boules have been thrown (CASE A) a boule is picked up by a player of the opposing team.

The umpire declared that the boule that was picked up is dead.

3. Before all boules have been thrown (CASE A) a boule is picked up by a player of the team to which

it belongs. The umpire declared that the boule that was picked up is dead.

We believe that all of these decisions were incorrect.

Documents

Notes on the Official Rules of the Game of Pétanque€¦ · 24/09/2015 · Notes on the Official Rules of the Game of Pétanque as approved 7th October 2010 in FIPJP in Izmir, Turkey