Tarock (1425)

Overview

Tarock is a general term for the many 2 to 5 player, point trick taking games of central Europe that use a 54-card Tarock deck. Common to these games is a round of bidding followed by a round of announcements indicating bonuses that will be attempted during the round of play, and doublings of the game, or any of the announced bonuses. The deck consists of 4 suits (usually clubs, spades, hearts, diamonds), and a permanent trump suit (Tarock) of 22 cards.

There are variants of tarock for 2 to 5 players.

Straw man tarock is a variant for 2 players where each players hand is augmented by cards dealt out into piles in front of him/her at the beginning of the game.

Tapp tarock is a variant for 3 players that does away with the bid to 'call a king'.

Königrufen is a variant for 4 active players (with 5 one player deals and sits out that round) who are dealt 12 cards and 6 for the talon, bidding indicates how many cards will be used from the talon with the remaining cards being split by the other players. The declarer calls a trump (XIX) or one of the kings to indicate a partner (the partner does not indicate this fact though), after which players can make bonus announcements and doublings. During the play, suit must be followed and trump must be played if you are out of the suit. Points are counted after each round and the declarer, generally, needs to take more than half in order to fulfill the contract.