The card game of Tarot
Dec. 14th, 2006 09:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xiphiasSo, a while back, when Lis and I were at Costco, we saw a Hoyle Card Games thing. I looked at it, and decided to buy it.
It doesn't have all the games I'd like -- I like whist better than either bridge or spades, for instance, and this has the latter two and not the first one. And it only has five-card draw poker, largely because they have a separate Poker game with other variations. I don't care about Texas Hold-Em or Hi-Lo or any of those, but I'd really like five- and seven-card stud.
But it does have about twenty games, plus fifty Solitaries games. And I've been playing some of them quite a lot. Mostly, ones I'd never played before, so I'm using the computer to learn them. Gotta say, for a lot of the games, having the computer deal and score makes things very easy.
I've always liked gin rummy and poker, and those are both in. I've not played cribbage since I was a kid, but intend to get back to it; haven't yet. And then there are the games I'd never played. I can't figure out pinochle, but canasta is a lot of fun. Euchre is a pretty good game, too -- as far as four-hand pairs trick-taking games, it's even easier than whist. I still like whist better, but this one is almost as good.
But the reason I bought the game was that the box said that it had the game of Tarot. And that's one I've always wanted to learn.
The game is also called "Tarocci", and it is, of course, the game for which tarot cards were developed, and then later used for fortune telling, as they are almost exclusively used today. I mainly wanted to learn it to shock and horrify all of you guys, my friends, when I take out my Tarot deck and start dealing it out.
It took me a while to figure out how the game worked, but I'm now really enjoying it.
Tarot is a four-hand trick-taking game, but individual, not pairs. (That kind of threw me originally -- if you've got four people, and you deal out the entire deck, I'm used to the people sitting across from each other being one team. This one isn't.)
There's a bidding round, but you're merely bidding on if you think you can win, not on a specific number of tricks taken. If nobody bids, the hand is re-dealt. But if someone bids, then they are the "Taker", and the other three people are the "Defenders". So bidding is tough -- you're always on your own against the other three players.
And the neat thing is that scoring is zero-sum. Every hand ends up being worth a certain number of points. If the defenders win, they each gain that number of points, if they lose, they lose that number of points. And the taker gets three times the opposite.
It's so clearly designed for betting. I really find myself wanting to play penny-a-point Tarot -- but it would be dangerous. Playing at penny-a-point, it would be theoretically possible to lose nearly ten bucks, or win nearly thirty, on a single hand. And losing a dollar, or winning three dollars, wouldn't be uncommon.
You sort of get a good deal of respect for the Venetians who invented the game, realizing that they played this game for REAL stakes. When you see just how bad a hand can get all of a sudden, and you think about what it would be like to be playing this for money, you realize that the people playing this must have had nerves of steel.
If you've ever used a tarot deck, and I think I can safely assume that most of you have, you know what the deck looks like. You've got four suits, each of which has fourteen cards. In the computer version, they use the modern suits, but tarot decks usually have the old version. Spades/swords, diamonds/pentacles, hearts/cups, clubs/staves. Each suit has 1-10, and Page/Valet, Knight/Chevalier, Queen/Dame, King/Roi.
And you've got the 21 Trumps (Major Arcana), and the Fool/Excuse.
The goal of Tarot in each hand is to get a certain number of points.
Kings are worth 4.5 points, Queens=3.5, Knights=2.5, Pages=1.5. The 21 of Trumps (The World), the 1 of Trumps (The Magician) and the Excuse (Fool) are called "bouts" and are worth 4.5 points. All other cards are worth 0.5 points.
How many points do you need to get to win your bid? That depends on how many of the three bouts you've taken.
If you take all 3 bouts, you need only 36 points. Take two, you need 41, take one, you need 51 points, and if you've screwed up badly enough to bid and fail to take ANY bouts, you need 56 card points.
Everyone is dealt 18 cards, and the extra six cards are put in the middle of the table, face-down. Those six cards are the "chien". You look at your cards, and you go around the table. You can pass, or make a bid. If someone else has already bid, you can pass, or make a higher bid.
Your bids are:
Prise (Take): "I can win this hand".
Garde (Guard): "I'm double-sure I can win this hand -- same as Prise, but I'm doubling the stakes."
Garde Sans (Guard Without): "I can win this hand, and I don't even need those cards in the middle of the table to do it." Worth four times the stakes.
Garde Contre (Guard Against): "I can win this hand, I don't need those cards in the middle of the table, and, heck, YOU guys can have the card points that are on the table." Worth six times the stakes.
Then you start playing. If the Taker bid Prise or Garde, he or she turns the chien face-up, everyone looks at it, and then the Taker takes those six cards, and discards six cards, face-down. This obviously can very much improve the Taker's hand. Which is why Garde Sans and Garde Contre are so gutsy. The points in the chien DO count towards the Taker's score, unless the bid was Garde Contre, in which case, they count towards the Defenders' score.
It's a trick-taking game, but with some differences. Obviously, you have to follow suit when you can, but, if you can't follow suit, you MUST play a trump if you've got one. If you can't follow suit, and someone's already played a trump, you MUST play a higher trump if you've got one, or a lower trump if you don't. If you can't follow suit and you have no trumps, you can play whatever.
At the end of the hand, the Taker counts up how many points he or she has, including the chien, and sees if he or she has gotten better than 36, 41, 51, or 56 points, depending how many bouts he or she took.
After that, you see by how MUCH you won or lost, and work out what the stakes are, and how much money you won or lost.
And it can be a lot. . .
I wanna play this with people sometime. Maybe not for money. But for poker chips or something.
It doesn't have all the games I'd like -- I like whist better than either bridge or spades, for instance, and this has the latter two and not the first one. And it only has five-card draw poker, largely because they have a separate Poker game with other variations. I don't care about Texas Hold-Em or Hi-Lo or any of those, but I'd really like five- and seven-card stud.
But it does have about twenty games, plus fifty Solitaries games. And I've been playing some of them quite a lot. Mostly, ones I'd never played before, so I'm using the computer to learn them. Gotta say, for a lot of the games, having the computer deal and score makes things very easy.
I've always liked gin rummy and poker, and those are both in. I've not played cribbage since I was a kid, but intend to get back to it; haven't yet. And then there are the games I'd never played. I can't figure out pinochle, but canasta is a lot of fun. Euchre is a pretty good game, too -- as far as four-hand pairs trick-taking games, it's even easier than whist. I still like whist better, but this one is almost as good.
But the reason I bought the game was that the box said that it had the game of Tarot. And that's one I've always wanted to learn.
The game is also called "Tarocci", and it is, of course, the game for which tarot cards were developed, and then later used for fortune telling, as they are almost exclusively used today. I mainly wanted to learn it to shock and horrify all of you guys, my friends, when I take out my Tarot deck and start dealing it out.
It took me a while to figure out how the game worked, but I'm now really enjoying it.
Tarot is a four-hand trick-taking game, but individual, not pairs. (That kind of threw me originally -- if you've got four people, and you deal out the entire deck, I'm used to the people sitting across from each other being one team. This one isn't.)
There's a bidding round, but you're merely bidding on if you think you can win, not on a specific number of tricks taken. If nobody bids, the hand is re-dealt. But if someone bids, then they are the "Taker", and the other three people are the "Defenders". So bidding is tough -- you're always on your own against the other three players.
And the neat thing is that scoring is zero-sum. Every hand ends up being worth a certain number of points. If the defenders win, they each gain that number of points, if they lose, they lose that number of points. And the taker gets three times the opposite.
It's so clearly designed for betting. I really find myself wanting to play penny-a-point Tarot -- but it would be dangerous. Playing at penny-a-point, it would be theoretically possible to lose nearly ten bucks, or win nearly thirty, on a single hand. And losing a dollar, or winning three dollars, wouldn't be uncommon.
You sort of get a good deal of respect for the Venetians who invented the game, realizing that they played this game for REAL stakes. When you see just how bad a hand can get all of a sudden, and you think about what it would be like to be playing this for money, you realize that the people playing this must have had nerves of steel.
If you've ever used a tarot deck, and I think I can safely assume that most of you have, you know what the deck looks like. You've got four suits, each of which has fourteen cards. In the computer version, they use the modern suits, but tarot decks usually have the old version. Spades/swords, diamonds/pentacles, hearts/cups, clubs/staves. Each suit has 1-10, and Page/Valet, Knight/Chevalier, Queen/Dame, King/Roi.
And you've got the 21 Trumps (Major Arcana), and the Fool/Excuse.
The goal of Tarot in each hand is to get a certain number of points.
Kings are worth 4.5 points, Queens=3.5, Knights=2.5, Pages=1.5. The 21 of Trumps (The World), the 1 of Trumps (The Magician) and the Excuse (Fool) are called "bouts" and are worth 4.5 points. All other cards are worth 0.5 points.
How many points do you need to get to win your bid? That depends on how many of the three bouts you've taken.
If you take all 3 bouts, you need only 36 points. Take two, you need 41, take one, you need 51 points, and if you've screwed up badly enough to bid and fail to take ANY bouts, you need 56 card points.
Everyone is dealt 18 cards, and the extra six cards are put in the middle of the table, face-down. Those six cards are the "chien". You look at your cards, and you go around the table. You can pass, or make a bid. If someone else has already bid, you can pass, or make a higher bid.
Your bids are:
Prise (Take): "I can win this hand".
Garde (Guard): "I'm double-sure I can win this hand -- same as Prise, but I'm doubling the stakes."
Garde Sans (Guard Without): "I can win this hand, and I don't even need those cards in the middle of the table to do it." Worth four times the stakes.
Garde Contre (Guard Against): "I can win this hand, I don't need those cards in the middle of the table, and, heck, YOU guys can have the card points that are on the table." Worth six times the stakes.
Then you start playing. If the Taker bid Prise or Garde, he or she turns the chien face-up, everyone looks at it, and then the Taker takes those six cards, and discards six cards, face-down. This obviously can very much improve the Taker's hand. Which is why Garde Sans and Garde Contre are so gutsy. The points in the chien DO count towards the Taker's score, unless the bid was Garde Contre, in which case, they count towards the Defenders' score.
It's a trick-taking game, but with some differences. Obviously, you have to follow suit when you can, but, if you can't follow suit, you MUST play a trump if you've got one. If you can't follow suit, and someone's already played a trump, you MUST play a higher trump if you've got one, or a lower trump if you don't. If you can't follow suit and you have no trumps, you can play whatever.
At the end of the hand, the Taker counts up how many points he or she has, including the chien, and sees if he or she has gotten better than 36, 41, 51, or 56 points, depending how many bouts he or she took.
After that, you see by how MUCH you won or lost, and work out what the stakes are, and how much money you won or lost.
And it can be a lot. . .
I wanna play this with people sometime. Maybe not for money. But for poker chips or something.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-14 03:04 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-14 03:30 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-14 03:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-14 05:29 pm (UTC)I was playing poker with Tarot cards. I got a full house and three people died.
ARG
Date: 2006-12-14 09:37 pm (UTC)NEVER PLAY HARTS WITHA THOTH DECK!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-14 10:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:This might be of interest to the group here
Date: 2006-12-23 05:38 am (UTC)I've just discovered this new LJ community
The Game of Tarot
http://community.livejournal.com/game_of_tarot/384.html