Jack–Nine card games

The Jack–Nine card games, also known as the Jass group, form a family of trick-taking games in which the jack (jass) and nine (manille) of the trump suit are the highest-ranking trumps, and the tens and aces of all suits are the next most valuable cards. Games in this family are typically played by 2 or 4 players with 32 French-suited cards.

Popular European games in this family include four-handed Belote, Klaverjas and Jass but also a widespread two-hander known under various names including Bela and Klaberjass. With the exception of the South Asian variants Twenty-nine, Twenty-eight and Fifty-six, trick-play in these games follows special rules that encourage trumping and overtrumping.

The Jack–Nine group is a subfamily of the King–Queen group, which in turn is a subfamily of the Ace–Ten group that is very popular in most of Europe but almost absent in the British Isles and Scandinavia.

Variants of the basic two-handed game, known under various names including Klaberjass and Bela, are played worldwide, especially in Jewish communities. Four-handed Belote with its numerous variants is the French national card game but has spread as far away as Saudi Arabia. Other notable members of the family include the Swiss and Dutch national card games: Swiss Jass and Dutch Klaverjas.

Twenty-nine, a popular game in South Asia, is a descendent of these games sharing many of their characteristics. In this game and its variants Twenty-eight and Fifty-six, trick-play is governed by the simple standard rule that suit must be followed if possible and a player who is blank in the suit led may play any card.

All other games in this family have slightly different trick-play rules that encourage trumping, typically by requiring players to trump a trick when they cannot follow suit. The Swiss games are special in that they are less restrictive than Whist, allowing players to trump a trick even when they can follow suit. The methods for determining the trump suit vary as in many other groups of card games. Often players can meld certain combinations in their hand to score additional points in exchange for giving information to the opponents, and score by a different mechanism for holding a belote (king and queen of trumps).

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Wikipedia