Trick-taking game

A typical trick. South has led and no-one else can "follow suit". Who has won this trick depends on the game being played.

A trick-taking game is a card game or tile-based game in which play of a "hand" centers on a series of finite rounds or units of play, called tricks, which are each evaluated to determine a winner or "taker" of that trick. The object of such games then may be closely tied to the number of tricks taken, as in plain-trick games such as Whist, Contract Bridge, Spades, Napoleon, Rowboat, and Spoil Five, or on the value of the cards contained in taken tricks, as in point-trick games such as Pinochle, the Tarot family, Rook, All Fours, Manille, Briscola, and most "evasion" games like Hearts. The domino game Texas 42 is an example of a trick-taking game that is not a card game.

Trick-and-draw games are trick-taking games in which the players can fill up their hands after each trick. Typically players are free to play any card into a trick in the first phase of the game, but must follow suit as soon as the score is depleted.

Basic structure

Certain actions in trick-taking games with three or more players always proceed in the same direction. In North and West Europe and Russia, the rotation is typically clockwise, i.e. play proceeds to the left; in South and East Europe and Asia it is typically counterclockwise, so that play proceeds to the right. When games move from one region to another, they tend to initially preserve their original sense of rotation. For two-player games the rotation does not matter.

In each hand or deal, one player is the dealer. This function moves from deal to deal in the direction of play. The dealer shuffles the deck and hands out the same (prescribed) number of cards to each player. The cards apportioned to each player are collectively known as that player's hand and are only known to the player. Any remaining undealt cards form the stock, which may or may not play a role in the game. In many games all cards are dealt and the stock is empty. The player sitting after the dealer is known as the eldest hand.

The eldest hand leads to the first trick, i.e. places a card face up in the middle between the players. The other players follow in the direction of play. When every player has played a card to the trick, the winner of the trick takes the cards, places them face down on a pile, and leads to the next trick.

The player who leads to a trick is usually allowed to play an arbitrary card from their hand. Some games have restrictions on the first card played in the hand, or may disallow leading a card of a given suit (usually a trump or penalty suit) until that suit has been played "off-suit" in another trick.

The following players must follow suit if they can, i.e. they must play a card of the same suit if possible. A player who cannot follow suit may sluff a card, i.e. play a card of a different suit. A trick is won by the player who has played the highest-ranked card of the suit led, i.e. of the suit of the first card in the trick (unless the game uses a trump suit; see below).

When all cards have been played, the winner of the deal is determined, e.g. by counting the tricks won by each player (in plain-trick games) or by counting the card points in the cards won by each player (in point-trick games).

In the above description some fine points have been omitted for simplicity. After shuffling and before dealing, the dealer passes the deck to the previous player for cutting, i.e. the previous player divides the deck into two parts and places the lower part on top of the upper part. The player who sits after the dealer receives the first batch of cards. Players do not take up their hands before the dealer has finished and everybody has received the full number of cards. Further details, such as how many cards each player receives and the size of the batches in which they are distributed, or what to do when the dealer makes a mistake, differ from game to game and may not even be well defined, especially for folk games.

It can be an advantage to lead to a trick, because the player who leads controls the suit led. On the other hand it can also be an advantage to be the last player who plays to the trick, because at that point one has full information about the other cards in the trick.

Trumps

In many games, one of the four suits is identified as the trump suit. In the simplest case, there is a static trump suit such as the Spade suit in the game Spades, or a dedicated symbol-less trump suit in the Tarot family. More often a dynamic trump suit is determined randomly from hand to hand (e.g. as the suit of the bottom card of the upper part of the deck when cutting), it may be set according to a fixed schedule from one hand to the next, it may be decided by eldest hand or by an auction. In the case of Rowboat, the trump suit is even more dynamic, as it changes throughout the course of the hand.

In most modern games with trumps, the rules for following suit do not distinguish between the trump suit and the plain suits. However, if a trick contains any cards of the trump suit, it is won by the highest-ranked card of the trump suit rather than the highest-ranked card of the suit led. If a trick begins with a plain suit card and a later player cannot follow suit, the player may choose freely to either sluff (discard a card of another plain suit), or ruff (trump the trick by playing a trump card). Subsequent players to the trick must still follow the original suit, and may only discard or trump if they do not hold a card of the suit led.

Some games are "play to beat" or "must-trump": if a player cannot follow suit but can play trump, they must play trump, and additionally if they are able they must beat any trump card already played to the trick. Pinochle and several of the Tarot card game variants have this rule, with many Tarot variants having the special rule that the Fool card may be played at any time instead of following suit or playing trump, but must be played if the player has it and can neither follow suit nor play trump.

In some games certain fixed cards are always the highest trumps, e.g. the Jacks in Skat or Euchre. In tarot games there is a series of special trump cards that can be thought of as the members of a fifth suit that is always trumps.

Revoking

If a player who can follow suit does not do so, or in games with additional restrictions on card play, not following these restrictions is known as a revoke, or 'renege'. A revoke typically cannot be discovered at the time when it is committed, but when a player discards, competent opponents will make a mental note that the player does not hold the suit led, and will notice later if that is not the case. The situation is similar for other types of revoke. Most game rules prescribe a severe penalty for a revoke and may also result in the hand being voided (a "misdeal").

Winning and scoring a deal

When all tricks have been played, the winner of the deal and the players' scores can be determined. The determining factor in plain-trick games (the most popular form of trick-taking games in English-speaking countries) is simply how many tricks each player has won. In point-trick games, certain card values are worth varying points, and the players sum the points from cards in their "scoring piles" that were accumulated by taking tricks. E.g. in Skat, Pinochle and many other games an Ace is worth 11 points, a Ten is worth 10 points, Kings, Queens and Jacks are worth 4, 3 and 2 points, respectively, and all other cards have a value of 0. In Hearts, the Queen of Spades is worth 13 points, each rank of hearts is worth 1 point, and all other cards have a value of 0.

In the most common positive or race games, players seek to win as many tricks or card points as possible. To win a deal, a player typically needs to win a minimal number of tricks or card points; this minimal threshold is usually called the "contract", and may be defined by the game's rules, or the result of an "auction" or "bidding" process. A player who wins more than the number of tricks or card points necessary for winning the deal may be rewarded with a higher score, or conversely (in exact-prediction games) they may be penalized.

There are also negative or evasion games, in which the object is to avoid tricks or card points. E.g. in Hearts each card point won in a trick contributes negatively to the score. A special type is misère games, which can only be won by not winning a single trick.

Other criteria also occur. Sometimes the last trick has special significance. In marriage games such as Pinochle the winner of the last trick receives 10 points in addition to the card points, while in final-trick games such as Cắt Tê only the winner of the last trick can win a deal. There are also blends between positive and negative games, e.g. the aim may be to win a certain prescribed number of tricks. Some negative games like Hearts have the additional feature that a player who wins all tricks, or all card points, gets a bonus or wins the game.

Contracts and auctions

In a contract game the winning and scoring condition and the trump suit are not fixed but are chosen by one of the players after seeing their hand. Perhaps the simplest example are games such as early forms of Skat, in which the dealer or eldest hand has the privilege of choosing the trump suit but must win more card points than all opponents together. Often the contractor can obtain a higher score by undertaking to reach a higher target. A player who is set, i.e. fails to fulfill their contract, receives a penalty.

In auction games, bidding players are competing against each other for the right to designate trumps (or notrumps) and to designate the number of tricks to be taken - the contract. The highest bid becomes the contract and the highest bidder is the contractor, known in some games as the declarer, who then plays either with or without a partner. The other players become opponents, whose main goal is to prevent the contract being met. Popular examples include Contract bridge, Pinochle, tarot games, Skat, Belote and Twenty-Eight. In many auction games eldest hand leads to the first trick, regardless of who won the auction, but in some, such as Contract Bridge, the first lead is made by the player next in rotation after the contractor, so that the contractor plays last to that trick.

In precision games, all players choose their winning condition independently: to win precisely a predicted number of tricks (Oh Hell) or card points (Differenzler). This type of game began to mature in the 20th century. Ninety-nine, a very high-quality game following this principle, is due to David Parlett.

Stock

In some games not all cards are distributed to the players, and a stock remains. In some games the stock remains untouched throughout the trick play.

In Ombre the contractor has the privilege of discarding some cards and replace them by cards from the stock. In tarot games and Skat, the contractor takes up the entire stock and then discards the same number of cards.

In some games, especially two-player games, after each trick every player draws a new card. This continues while the stock lasts. Since revokes would normally make it very unlikely that a revoke can be detected, in the first phase of trick-play (before the stock is empty) players generally need not follow suit. A widespread game of this type is Schnapsen/66/Marriage.

Partnerships

In many games such as Hearts and Oh Hell, all players play individually against each other, but in other games there are fixed or varying partnerships.

• In many four-player games such as Bridge and Spades, the players sitting opposite to each other form a fixed partnership.
• In some contract/auction games for three or more players, e.g. most Tarot variants, the contractor (declarer or taker) plays alone against all opponents, who form an ad hoc partnership (the defenders).
• In some games the partnerships are decided by accident; in some Schafkopf variants two players holding the black Queens are partners for that hand. Such games need special rules in case a single player holds both black Queens. Five-player French Tarot is similar but allows the taker to call out a suit for which he does not possess the King of that suit, and is partnered with whomever does have it against the other three.
• In some games the contractor forms a partnership with the winner of the first trick, or with the player who holds a certain card.

Some games such as Pinochle are commonly played with or without partnerships, depending on the number of players.

Special variations

Numerous further variations to the basic rules may occur, and only a few examples can be mentioned here:

• Certain games require the holder of a certain card value to play it as the lead to the first trick of a hand; Hearts, as commonly played in North America, requires the player holding the 2♣ to play it as the lead-off card. Variants of Pinochle sometimes require the first player to the left of the dealer that holds a dix (9♣) to lead off.
• There may be restrictions on leading certain suits; a common Hearts rule is that a player may not lead a Heart until at least one trick has had a Heart played off-suit to another trick. Spades has a similar but less-common variation regarding its trump suit.
• There are trick-taking games played with Domino tiles instead of playing cards. These include the Chinese Tien Gow and Texas 42.
• Many games are played with one or more stripped decks (a deck from which certain card values are removed). The most common stripped deck is a piquet deck, used for piquet, Belote, Skat, Euchre, Bezique and (with two piquet decks) Pinochle, among others. [Rook (game)|Rook]'s main variant, Kentucky Discard, uses the equivalent of a 52-card deck with all card values 2-4 removed. Most regional [Tarot] variants, especially Germanic and Italian variants like Tarock and Tarocco, use some subset of the "full" 78-card Tarot deck.
• In Bridge the partner of the contractor or declarer is called dummy and does not actively participate in the play; dummy's hand is instead fully exposed after the opening lead, and declarer chooses the cards from dummy's hand to play during dummy's turns.

History

According to card game researcher David Parlett, the oldest known trick-taking game, Karnöffel, was mentioned in 1426 in the Bavarian town Nördlingen – roughly half a century after the introduction of playing cards to Europe, which were first mentioned in Spain in 1371. The oldest known trumps appear in Karnöffel, where specific ranks of one suit were named Karnöffel, Devil, Pope etc. and subject to an elaborate system of trumping powers. Around 1440 in Italy special cards called trionfi were introduced with a similar function. These special cards are now known as tarots, and a deck augmented by tarots as a tarot deck. The trionfi/tarots formed essentially a fifth suit without the ordinary ranks but consisting of trumps in a fixed hierarchy. But one can get a similar effect by declaring all cards of a fixed or randomly determined suit to be trumps. This method is still followed by a number of modern trick-taking games that do not involve an auction. Parlett notes that while trumps were retroactively added to some games, such as Trappola, no example is known of trumps being removed from a game.

The trick-taking genre includes some of the most historically popular games ever played such as Bridge, Spades, Hearts, Rook, Belote, Skat, Euchre, and Pinochle. Most trick-taking games popular in the English-speaking world descended from the game Ruff and Honours, a simple "race"-type game where the object is to take as many tricks as possible. This game evolved into Whist, from which the majority of current plain-trick games was derived.

It is possible that the origin of the practice of counting tricks (in plain-trick games) was the counting of cards won in tricks. It was therefore a logical development to accord some cards a higher counting-value, and some cards no value at all, leading to point-trick games. Point-trick games are at least as old as tarot decks and may even predate the invention of trumps. All point-trick games are played with tarot decks or stripped decks, which in many countries became standard before 1600, and neither point-trick games nor stripped decks have a tradition in England.

While there is a number of games with unusual card-point values, such as Trappola and All Fours, most point-trick games are in the huge family of Ace–Ten card games. Pinochle is a representative of this family that is popular in the United States. Other examples include Belote and Skat.

References

• Kastner, Hugo; Folkvord, Gerald K. (2005) (in German), Die große Humboldt Enzyklopädie der Kartenspiele, Humboldt, ISBN 978-3-89994-058-9 
• McLeod, John, ed., Card Games website, http://www.pagat.com/ .
• Parlett, David (1990), The Oxford guide to card games: a historical survey, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-214165-1 .
• Parlett, David (2008), The Penguin Book of Card Games (3rd ed.), Penguin Books, ISBN 978-0-14-103787-5 .

See also

• List of trick-taking games