Tarot games are card games played with tarot packs designed for card play and which have a permanent trump suit alongside the usual four card suits. The games and packs which English-speakers call by the French name tarot are called tarocchi in the original Italian, Tarock in German and similar words in other languages.
Tarot games are increasingly popular in Europe, especially in France where French tarot is the second most popular card game after Belote. In Austria, Tarock games, especially Königrufen, have become widespread and there are several major national and international tournaments each year. Italy, the home of tarot, remains a stronghold. Games of the tarot family are also played in Hungary, Slovenia, Liechtenstein, Czechia, Slovakia, Switzerland, Denmark, south Germany and south Poland.
History The introduction of trumps is one of only two major innovations to trick-taking games since they were invented, the other being the idea of bidding.Dummett (1980), p. 173. Trump cards, initially called trionfi, first appeared with the advent of tarot cards, in which there is a separate, permanent trump suit comprising a number of picture cards.Dummett (1980), p. 173. In contrast, a different concept arose in the game of the contemporary game of Karnöffel. In this south German game played with an ordinary pack, some cards of the chosen or selected suits had full trump powers, others were partial trumps and the 7s had a special role. These features are retained in games of the Karnöffel family to the present, but are never seen in tarot games.Dummett (1980), pp. 190–191.Card Games: Karnöffel Group at pagat.com. Retrieved 29 November 2023.
The earliest known example of a fifth suit of trumps was ordered by Filippo Maria Visconti around 1420 and included 16 trumps with images of Greek and Roman gods. A basic description first appeared in the manuscript of Martiano da Tortona, written before 1425.Description of the Michelino deck – Translated text at Trionfi.com, by Martiano da Tortona, translated by Ross Caldwell
From Italy, Tarot first spread to France and Switzerland in the 16th century and Belgium in the late 17th century. Then to most parts of Europe in the 18th century with the notable exceptions being the British Isles, the Iberian peninsula, and the Balkans.David Parlett, Oxford Dictionary of Card Games, pg. 300 Oxford University Press (1996) While there are many brief or vague descriptions of how Tarot was played in its first two centuries, the earliest detailed description of rules for a tarot game in any language were published by the Abbé de Marolles in Nevers in 1637.Regles dv Jev des Tarots at tarock.info. Retrieved 4 January 2023.Depaulis (2002), pp. 313–316. The abbot learnt this variant from Princess Louise-Marie of Gonzague-Nevers, who introduced some rule variations from the normal game. It was played by three players with a 66-card pack, obtained by removing the 3 lowest cards of each suit from a standard 78-card, Italian-suited tarot pack. Two players received 21 cards each. The dealer received 25, from which four were discarded. There were payments for declaring certain card combinations at the start, for playing the Ace of Coins and for taking the last trick with a King or the Pagat. The usual tarot rules or play and card point values applied. The winner was the one with the most points in tricks and was paid an amount by the losers based on the difference in scores.Early 17th Century French Tarot (according to the Abbé de Marolles, 1637) at pagat.com. Retrieved 24 October 2023.
Tarot decks did not precede decks having four suits of the same length,"The Tarot pack was invented in northern Italy in about 1425 [...]. A plethora of references to the cards, from Italy in the XV century [...] testify to their use as instruments in a special kind of card game. None associates them with the occult, and only one very dubious one hints at a use of them to read individual characters. It was not until the XVIII century that the use of them for divination became widespread in Bologna and France. Their association with the occult originated exclusively in France; neither it nor their use in fortune-telling was propagated in print until 1781." and they were invented not for occult purposes but purely for gaming."A third particularity [...] is how widespread is the blanket of darkness enveloping everything to do with tarots in particular. [...] The ignorance is largely fostered and reinforced by writers of books on the mystic side of tarot who assert without evidence that tarot-cards were originally invented for fortune telling and only subsequently adapted to the 'less serious' business of gaming — whereas, as our authors patiently explain, the fact of the matter is precisely the reverse". David Parlett in the preface to . In 1781, Court de Gébelin published an essay associating the cards with ancient wisdom, the earliest record of this idea, subsequently debunked by Dummett.Dummett, Michael. Twelve Tarot Games. London: Duckworth (1980), p. 2. . As a result of the unsupported theories of de Gébelin and other occultists,Decker, Depaulis & Dummett (2002), p. xi. tarot cards have since been used for cartomancy and divination as well as gaming, although now fortune-tellers tend to use specially developed tarot decks rather than those used for games.
Rules
Number of players Tarot can be played by two to eight players, but the vast majority of rules are for three or four players. Players can compete individually or be part of a fixed partnership or have variable alliances that change with each hand.
Deck of cards A complete Tarot deck such as one for French Tarot contains the full 78-card complement. It can be used to play any game in the family, with the exception of Minchiate, an extinct game that used 97 cards. Austrian-Hungarian Tarock and Italian Tarocco decks are a smaller subset, of 63, 54, 40, or even 36 cards, suitable only for games of a particular region. These games remove various ranks of pip cards to increase the chances of a void or short suit.
Regional tarot decks commonly feature culture-specific suits. In Italy (excluding Trieste) and parts of Switzerland, the original Latin suits of Cups, Coins, Clubs, and Swords are used. In Trieste and everywhere else, the French suits of Hearts, Diamonds, Clubs, and Spades are used. The trump suit does not have a suit symbol, they are ranked by large Arabic or additive Roman numerals.
The 78-card tarot deck contains: 14 cards each in four suits (French or Latin depending on the region): "pip" cards numbered one (but called Ace) to ten. Plus four court cards, a Jack (or Knave or Valet), a Knight (or Cavalier), a Queen, and a King. The 21 tarots function in the game as a permanent suit of trumps. The Fool, also known as the Excuse, is an unnumbered card that excuses the player from following suit or playing a trump in some variations, and that acts as the strongest trump in others.
The 54-card 'Tarock' deck contains: 8 cards each in four suits (usually French), the "pip" cards being stripped out leaving 1 to 4 in the red suits (Ace highest) and 10 to 7 in the black suits (ten highest). The court cards remain the same. 22 Tarocks as permanent trumps, including the Sküs (the Fool) as an unnumbered Tarock XXII, the Mond as Tarock XXI and the Pagat as Tarock I, which are collectively known as the Trull or "Honours" and have a special role.
Due to the antiquity of tarot games, the cards are ordered in an archaic ranking. In the plain suits, Kings are always high. With the exception of modern French tarot and Sicilian tarocchi, the ranking in the Latin round suits (cups and coins) or the French red suits (diamonds and hearts) goes from King (high), Queen, Cavalier, Jack, 1, 2, 3 ... 10 (low).
For the purpose of the rules, the numbering of the trumps is all that matters. The symbolic tarot images have no effect in the game itself other than influencing the naming of a few of the cards (Fool, Mond, Pagat, Little Man). The design traditions of these decks evolved independently, and they often bear only numbers and whimsical scenes arbitrarily chosen by the engraver. There are still traditional sequences of images in which the common lineage is visible. E.g. the moon that is commonly visible at a corner of the trump card 21 in the Industrie und Glück stems from confusion of the German word Mond, meaning "moon", with Italian mondo and French monde, meaning "world", the usual symbol associated with the trump card 21 on Italian-suited tarots.
Basic rules of play Play is typically anti-clockwise; the player to the right of the dealer plays to the first trick. Players must follow suit if they have a card of the suit led, otherwise they must play a trump if possible. The winner of each trick leads to the next. After the hand has been played, a score is taken based on the point values of the cards in the tricks each player has managed to capture.
Common card values The aim in almost all card games of the Tarot family is to make as many points as possible from the cards taken in tricks, the cards having different point values. Those cards which have little or no point value are called various names – Skartins, Ladons or cartes basses depending on the region – but may be referred to as low cards.
Cards which have a higher point value may be called counting cards or counters. They usually include the Fool (Excuse or Sküs), the I (Pagat Petit, Bagatto or Little Man) and the XXI (Mond) plus all the court cards. In such a case, the low cards are the remaining tarots (II to XX) and all the pip cards. Not all games follow this precisely. In some games, other cards are included among the counters. However, the division of counters and low cards described is the most common and is often accompanied by the following 'standard' card values:
Oudlers or Trull cards – Trumps I, XXI and the Fool: 5 points Kings: 5 points Queens: 4 points Cavaliers or Knights: 3 points Knaves, Valets or Jacks: 2 points Low cards: 1 point
Tarot scoring The system by which players work out their scores in almost all Tarot games may appear "eccentric and puzzling", but the rationale to it is that, originally, the cards were each valued at one less point than that shown above (e.g. Kings were worth 4 points and low cards had no point value), but every trick taken scored one point. Dummett argues that the tedious work of counting tricks and card points separately led players to fuse the two processes into a single operation. There are several practical methods, but all are designed to achieve the same aim: a quick and relatively simple way of calculating the score.
A very common system used in many 54-card Tarock games is counting in packets of three. Under the original scoring scheme, the pack would have been worth 52 points and there would have been 18 points for the 18 tricks making a total of 70 points in total; thus, in most cases, a declarer needs 36 points to win. Mayr and Sedlaczek described 3 common systems:
Counting in threes with low cards The first, easiest and oldest method is counting in threes with low cards. A player gathers the cards won in tricks and groups them into triplets each comprising one counting card and two low cards. Each triplet scores the value of the counter only e.g. a Queen and two low cards scores 4. A triplet of three low cards scores exactly 1 point. In some games, players may end up with one or two cards over. Two remaining low cards are rounded up to score 1 point; a single low card is rounded down to zero. This is the simplest method but it doesn't work if a player does not have enough low cards for every counter.
Counting in threes with a 2-point deduction