Tarot - the game

Moonbow

Lovely scans aren't they?

Sounds like you've played it Huck. If I'm right can you tell me why the images that appear on the trumps are what they are? Are the images relevant to the game or just nice images on a deck, because each Jeu de Tarot deck seems to vary.
 

Huck

Evie said:
Lovely scans aren't they?

Sounds like you've played it Huck. If I'm right can you tell me why the images that appear on the trumps are what they are? Are the images relevant to the game or just nice images on a deck, because each Jeu de Tarot deck seems to vary.

I played it only with the program ... but I know other trick taking card games with similar complexity. In the game the pictures are usually irrelevant, just the order of the trumps is important. The cards 0 (Fool), 1 (lowest trump) and 21 (highest trump) usually have special function. They count points (4 or 5 points, depending on the counting method), other trumps count nothing.

Bridge is a trick-counting game, similar to Spades, the German Skat and Doppelkopf count the point-value of cards.
Tarot variants usually count tricks AND card points, whereby the total card points are usually much higher than the total points for tricks (occasionally the trick counting is hidden between a card counting).

Some Tarot rules give additional points for specific combination of card. All mentioned games (Bridge etc.) use bidding systems, before the game starts, but these are rather different with different objective. Mostly it's done to decide, which suit is the trump suit, but in Tarot (which has a "predefined trump suit") it's only to raise the value of the game and to decide the single player (in games with single players). And the highest bidding often gets the Talon (cards, which weren't distributed to the players) - the Talon mostly is used to exchange the cards of the bidding person.
 

Moonbow

Good to know the pictures aren't relevant to playing the game.

I've been reading that the Fool, Bateleur and World (sometimes Judgement) are the honours in the deck and worth more points and that the Fool is a wildcard and can be used in place of other cards. A valuable card to have in any hand I imagine. How many players does it need to play Tarot, you mention 'single player' but maybe I'm not understanding you? The Talon is the pile of cards left over after exchanges have taken place. so the points for those cards gets added to the winners hand?

Sounds as though any modern Tarot deck could be used as long as its understood which cards are Trumps and which are minors? Even an occult type deck, though who would when the real thing is still available and far more beautiful.

Thanks Huck, it would be really nice for more Tarot enthusiasts to take an interest in its origins as a gaming deck.
 

Bernice

I searched for info about tarot gaming, found a post by Ross about the Mantegna, but quotes the following games:

Extract (Ross): http://www.tarotforum.net/showpost.php?p=454555&postcount=10

""so 20 for bouillotte, 28 for brelan, 32 for piquet and a great number of games, 36 for trappola, 40 for l’hombre, 48 for reversis, 52 for lansquenet and many others, 96 for comet, 104 for the lottery and 312 for thirty-one; the current taroc is however composed of 78 cards. It is played between two people, but one makes three parts, two of which have 25 and one of 28 for the player who deals the cards.

The old taroc cards were thus not made for mathematical games, but only for an instructive game."



This has the names of a number of games played with regional decks. See that the 78 card game says two players.


Bee :)
 

Moonbow

Ah yes I've read this Bee :) thanks for the reminder.
 

Huck

Tarot / Tarock is mostly played with 3 or 4 players. In the games with 3 players one player plays against two others. In the game with 4 players MOSTLY 1 player plays against 3. The "single player" is usually selected by a bidding process before any card is played.
I think, I've seen also "2 against 2" versions.

If you take the whole family of the Tarot / Tarock games, there are considerable variants. A version with two players I've also seen, I remember.

A version with one single player is only for training exercises ... :)

Here is an overview:

http://www.pagat.com/tarot/

... with links to many different game descriptions
 

Bernice

Cheers Huck. Thank you for the pagat link.
A version with one single player is only for training exercises ...
:laugh: I try that with card games, not very good at it :)

Bee :)
 

Huck

Here is one variant ... "Königrufen" (call a king)

http://www.pagat.com/tarot/koenig.html

That's really funny and might be quite a detection if somebody bothers to learn it. Actually I myself would like to play and explore it ... but Tarock isn't played here.

But I guess it's possibly too complicated to learn for most.

In the game there are variants, in which bad cards actually win the game, so it must be rather tricky. You can win, if you make no trick at all or precisely one or precisely two tricks.

And at least occasionally it is played in partnership, "two against two" (that's far more funny than the "one against three" way. "Calling a king" means, that the bidding player choose the player, who holds the requested king on his hand, as partner. The bidding player (and two of three other players) doesn't know, who this player is, and only during game (sometimes rather late) it becomes apparent, who it is.

"Zwanzigerrufen" is a simplified form of Königrufen. It's played with 40 cards only ... but I find no English description.
 

Bernice

:) I think the explanation might sound more complicated than the game itself. It sounds like a game I would like to have a go at.

Checking out the link.......


Bee :)
 

Huck

Der englische Universitätsprofessor Sir Michael Dummett, der zurecht immer wieder als Tarockpapst tituliert wird, leitet in seinem Buch The Game of Tarot das Kapitel über dieses Spiel mit folgenden Worten ein: „Die Regeln sind mit großem Geschick entwickelt worden, wodurch es zu einem der schönsten Tarockspiele geworden ist. Es ist völlig angemessen, dass wir unseren Rundblick auf Tarock, in all seiner großen Vielfalt, mit dieser superben Variante beenden.“ Auch John McLeod, Betreiber der Kartenspiele-Website http://www.pagat.com/, betrachtet Zwanzigerrufen mit Talon als das interessanteste Kartenspiel und reiht es über dem Königrufen.
http://www.wienerzeitung.at/default.aspx?TabID=4420&Alias=spiele

This says, that Dummett and McLeod expressed the opinion, that Zwanzigerrufen might be the most interesting Tarot game.

"Zwanzigerrufen" is a simplified form of Königrufen. It's played with 40 cards only ... but I find no English description.