How to Play
 
Game setup
Place the board between the players. Create a cache of tokens by placing them to the side in four separate stacks, one per colour. Each player takes a card holder and places it in front of them. Then the Quartino cards are shuffled. Each player secretly draws 4 Quartino cards and places them in their card holder.
Playing the game
The youngest player starts, then play continues in a clockwise direction.
During their turn, each player will: 1/ Check to see if there is a “four colours” or “column” situation on the board. 2/ Place a colour token on the board. 3/ Make a Quartino.
The “four colours” and “column” situations are explained later in the instructions. Placing a colour token: The player chooses 1 token of their chosen colour from the cache, then places it in a slot on the board.
The token may be placed in an empty slot or on top of another token, thus creating a column.
Making a Quartino
A Quartino is a combination of colour tokens that matches a combination shown on a Quartino card. Only the tokens at the very top of the columns count. As soon as a player thinks they have formed one of the combinations shown on their Quartino cards, the player announces “Quartino”. They then show the corresponding Quartino card and indicate which tokens on the board form this combination.
Another player checks to see if they are correct.
If the combination is correct: - The player removes the Quartino card from their card holder and places it to the side. - The player removes the four tokens from the board and returns them to the cache. - The player chooses a new colour token and places it wherever they want on the board.
NB: it is possible for the player to make a new Quartino with this action. In this case, all of the steps from “Making a Quartino” are repeated. If the combination is incorrect: - The player places the Quartino card back in their card holder, and their turn ends.
 
“Four colours” and “column” situations At the start of their turn, each player must check to see if there is a “four colours” or “column” situation on the board.
Four colours:
A “four colours” situation occurs when four or more tokens of the same colour are on the board (whether they are at the top of a column or in the middle). If a player catches this situation, they announce “four colours”.
¬ They may then place two tokens (instead of one) on the board during the “Placing a token” phase. Column: A “column” situation occurs when there is a column of four or more tokens on the board, regardless of colour. If a player catches this situation, they announce “column”.
¬ They then take all of the tokens in this column and put them back in the cache. ¬ They may then place two tokens (instead of one) on the board during the “Placing a token” phase. If a player sees that there is a “4 colours” situation AND a “column” situation on the board: They call it out, then place 3 tokens down (1 for their turn + 1 for the “4 colours” + 1 for the “column” ) and remove the tokens that make up the column. They can complete these moves in the order of their choice.
NB: during the first few games, it is possible to play without using the “four colours” or “column” situations.
End of the game
As soon as a player removes the last Quartino card from their holder, they win the game.