The original coup was referred to as the Bath Coup, whereby a player holding the Ace, Jack and small card(s) plays small against the lead of a King-Queen sequence, so as to get two tricks (if the suit is continued).

Other variants include the Scissors Coup (so named because it breaks communications between defenders, most commonly by discarding a key card from either the declarer's own hand or dummy, usually the former, enabling declarer to counter the lead of one defender of a suit in which the other defender is thought to hold the highest remaining card, thus allowing declarer to ruff such a trick), and the Galileo Coup (so named because Galileo Galilei is usually credited with the invention of the telescope; this coup arises when the contract is in a suit in which the declaring side is missing both the Ace and King; if successful, the defenders end up being forced to play the Ace and King of trumps to the same trick, thus "telescoping" their two trump tricks into one).

See also trump coup