Trump (card games)

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In a trick-taking game, a trump is a card which is elevated above its normal rank. Typically an entire suit is nominated as a trump suit - these cards then outrank all cards of plain (non-trump) suits.

In most games, the relative rank of cards within a suit is the same in trump and plain suits, but they may sometimes differ, as for example in Klabberjass or Euchre.

The trump suit may be fixed as in Spades, rotate on a fixed schedule or depend on the outcome of the previous hand as in Ninety-nine, be determined by drawing a card at random as in Bezique, by the last card dealt to a designated player as in Whist, by the first card played as in Nine Card Don, be chosen by a designated player as in Barbu, or players may bid for the right to select the trump suit as in Contract Bridge or Skat.

In most games, trump cards cannot be played if the player has any cards of the suit led to the trick; in a few, trumps can be played at any time. Playing the first trump to an already-started trick is known as ruffing; if another player were to play a higher trump, that would be an overruff or more commonly an overtrump.

What occultists call the "Major Arcana" of divinatory tarot are used as a permanent suit of trumps in the game of Tarot, tarocchi, or tarock. The game of Tarot existed centuries before the tarot deck became popular for cartomancy, and the game is credited for introducing the concept of a trump suit in card games.

In other contexts, the term trump card can refer to any sort of action taken which automatically prevails over another. This can be used perjoratively to refer to a useless argument such as "Because I'm your parent and I said so".

The word "trump" derives from "triumph", documented as the name of a card game in 1529 and which spawned the game Ruff and Honours, which in turn led to Whist.^[1]