Königrufen
| A trick-taking game of the European Tarot card game family. | |
 |
|
| Origin | Austria |
|---|---|
| Type | Trick-taking |
| Players | 4 |
| Skills required | Tactics, Strategy |
| Age range | 12+ |
| Cards | 54 |
| Deck | Industrie und Glück |
| Play | Counter-clockwise |
| Card rank (highest to lowest) | Trump suit: Sküs, 21-1 Black suits: K Q C J 10 9 8 7 Red suits: K Q C J 1 2 3 4 |
| Playing time | 30 min. |
| Random chance | Moderate |
| Related games | |
| Tapp-Tarock, Cego | |
Königrufen or Königsrufen (German: "The Calling of a King") is a four-player trick-taking card game of the tarot family, played in Austria and Southern Tyrol. As other regional tarot card games, it's usually called Tarock (the German term for tarot card games) by the players. Also five players may play the game with the dealer sitting out. In a broader sense, related tarot card games of nearby areas in Central Europe may also be counted to Königrufen, especially in the one Slovenia.
Austrian Königrufen has a common core set of rules with considerable variation in the types of announcements and bonuses permitted, along with scoring, with most groups of players creating their own house rules. Although widely accepted tournament rules have been developed, such rules vary depending on the region where the game is played.
Königrufen evolved from the older 18th century tarock games which borrowed their concepts of bidding from the card game Quadrille, an Hombre variant, to determine who played with whom. The earliest reference of the game appears in Wien, in a book written in 1840. Its closest cousin is Tapp-Tarock, extensively played in Austria.
The 54-card Industrie und Glück Tarock deck with combined value of 70 points is used. Each player receives 12 cards and 6 cards called the Talon are placed in the center. Players take turn in a counter-clockwise direction. After the exchange with the Talon, the player to the right of the dealer leads to the first trick. Like most trick-taking games, the winner of the last trick leads to the next until either all 12 tricks have been played, or a player has failed to achieve an announced goal.
The 54 cards are divided into two groups: 32 suit cards and 22 Tarocks (trumps).
The 32 suit cards consist of four courts: king, queen, knight and jack, along with four lower ranked cards, the pips of eight cards each in the four suits: hearts, diamonds, spades and clubs -. The cards rank as follows:
The 22 Tarocks are ranked according to the Roman numbers displayed on the corner of these cards. Six Tarocks are specially named as they play important roles in the game:
...
Wikipedia