History |
The first rules for a game of this type were written down in Scotland in 1849, where it was called "Bowls".
In 1894 the French laid out rules for what was called "Boule Lyonnaise".
Since Boule Lyonnaise involved some acrobatics as you had to step out of a drawn circle as far as possible with one foot, a physically disabled man named Jules LeNoir in a Southern French Town called La Ciotat laid out the rules for Pétanque in 1910.
The main difference between this new game and Boule Lyonnaise was that your feet had to be close together. Joined feet in French is "pieds tanqués", hence the name "Pétanque". |
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Equipment |
This game is quite cheap. All it takes to play is |
| 1 |
Three steel balls |
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One small wooden ball called cochonnet (little pig) with a diameter of about 3cm. Cost is SFr.1.- |
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Teams |
There are basically three playing modes: |
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Tète à Tète. Here two single players match their skills with three balls each. |
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Doublette. This is the most frequently played mode. Two teams of two players. Each participant uses three balls. |
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Triplette. The original Pétanque mode. Two teams of three players. Every player has only two steel balls. |
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Rules |
Playing Pétanque is fairly easy. The field is not limited to any specific size, nor is it prepared in any way. You just play on any terrain you encounter.
First you draw a circle with a diameter of 60cm in the sand. |
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The first player then throws the cochonnet anywhere from 6 to 10 meters away from the circle. He or she then tosses the first ball after the cochonnet, trying to get as close as possible. Usually the ball is thrown about two thirds of the way, while it rolls the last third.
After this the other team throw their balls until one of them is the closest. The teams then take turns until all balls are thrown. One can also attempt to shoot one of the opponents' balls out of the game. Some player specialize in becoming shooters. A good team has evenly distributed skills between throwing and shooting. |
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In this Doublette situation the green team scores two points because they have two balls closer to the cochonnet than their opponents' closest is. Points are cumulated throughout the game. Whoever reaches 13 first, wins. |
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Petanque for beginners: Throwing your boule |
 It will feel quite strange when throwing a boule for the first time with the palm of your hand facing downwards,. "Surely", you think, "if the palm of my hand faced upward I could throw a boule much more easily"? The truth is, yes, you could throw more easily, but could you throw both accurately and use the correct amount of power required?
You don't only need to throw straight, but you need to stop your boule near to the target. Remember, when pointing you need accuracy, the correct amount of weight (or power) plus an ability to turn the boule to the right or to the left, and when necessary apply backspin to stop the boule more quickly. You will find difficulty doing all these things with your palm uppermost.
When throwing your boule keep your arm fully extended all the time Swing your arm back as far as possible and then forward again. Judge the force you need to carry your boule to its target and where to release it as the hand rises in front of your body.
3. Make sure, when you release the boule that the fingers of the hand are fully extended and pointing towards the target, you only need one relaxed or bent finger to send the boule away from its true course; so concentrate when you throw a boule. |
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| POINTING |
 1.
The art of pointing always, is to get your boule exactly where you want it. Pointing is the term usually given to the throwing of the boule towards the coche. You may sometimes want your boule as close to the coche as possible.
At other times you may want your boule to block a space in front of the coche between other boules.
And yet other times when you want your boule in front of an opponents boule to give you an advantage. It is by consistent and accurate pointing very often that you can frustrate and demoralise the opposition. This is not an easy thing to do, and the only way to get near to it is, to practise often. But pointing alone is not the full answer.
Read also the subject of "Terrain" Both these go together.
2.
There is no "one stance" from which to point. Some stand upright, others have a slight bend in their bodies, others half sit with one hand supported on the knee, others bend until their hands almost touch the ground, and yet others sit in a squatting position .
All have their advantages and their disadvantages and all have their followers. Try all of them in your practise sessions, and use those that you feel comfortable with and give you the best results and the most satisfaction.
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| Petanque Circle |
 For ever I know, drawing the circle has been an easy task, your index finger was good enough. That’s no longer the case: Enter “the plastic circle.” A flat plastic circle of exactly 50 cm inside diameter is now part of the official, international petanque rules. The photograph on the left shows a circle used at the 2006 Petanque World Championships in Grenoble. |
 Aoyama Petanque, always at the cutting edge of things in the petanque world, has gotten hold of a few of these circles. Some of them are even ‘keitai’, which means they can be folded to fit any normal sized bag. The photograph on the right hand side shows one of them, and it also shows the official marking method. The marking is important as the plastic circle is easily moved by error when entering it. |
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