The truco is the game's one lever of pure pressure — and the decision players argue about most. This chapter reads the lever off the solved 10×10 spot from both sides: when the equilibrium actually pulls it, what its raising range is made of, and how it answers when the pressure comes back the other way.
The ladder at ten apiece
One structural fact frames everything at this score: the first truco already plays for the match. Ten plus three clears twelve, so once truco is accepted there is nothing left for six, nine, or twelve to add — the solver proves the higher rungs irrelevant here and removes them. Every raising question at 10×10 is the question of the single truco.
And the solve is in no hurry to ask it. Calling truco before playing anything carries 0.3% of the opening mix — leverage is worth more once a round has been seen. The ladder is a mid-hand weapon, not an opening one.
When the solve raises
Deal-weighted over the solved window, here is how often a truco actually gets called at each moment of the hand (only counting spots where no raise has happened yet):
| Moment | Raises |
|---|---|
| Before any card (the leader's option) | 0.3% |
| Facing the lead, before replying (the dealer) | 11.3% |
| Leading round 2 after winning round 1 | 5.3% |
| Leading round 2 after a tied round 1 | 32.3% |
| Round 2, after its first card is down | 23.3% |
Two patterns stand out. A tied first round is truco weather — the rate jumps from 5% to 32%, because a tie converts round 2 into sudden death and the pressure play prices best exactly there. And the rate climbs as the hand ages: information arrived, ranges narrowed, and the threat has more to lean on.
What the raising range holds
Add up everything that raises across the window and look inside the range: 51.8% of the raising mass holds a manilha, against a 28% base rate. In other words, the solve's trucos are roughly half value, half pressure — enough strength that the call is honest, enough air that folding everything to it is exploitable.
That mixture is the practical lesson. A truco from the equilibrium is not an announcement of the best hand; it is a priced threat that happens to be backed by one about half the time. Both pure readings — “truco means manilha” and “truco means bluff” — lose to it.
When to let a hand go
The answering side is where the money is. Facing a truco, the solve folds 63% and accepts 37% of its reach mass (re-raising is moot here — the higher rungs are score-irrelevant). Folding a majority of the time is not timidity; at these stakes conceding one point is routinely cheaper than playing three behind.
The habits are priced in the leaks chapter, but the headline belongs here: accepting every truco costs 10.4 pp of match-win chance per deal on average, and the single worst call in the window — accepting on 4 4 4 after leading a 4 into the raise — burns 36.6 pp. The mirror habit, folding everything, costs 6.2 pp: expensive, but the cheaper of the two sins.
10x10 v4 : 3 3 / →