A card game is any game using playing cards as the primary device with which the game is played, be they traditional or game-specific. Countless card games exist, including families of related games. A small number of card games played with traditional decks have formally standardized rules with international tournaments being held, but most are folk games whose rules may vary by region, culture, location or from circle to circle.
Tarot is a pack of playing cards, used from at least the mid-15th century in various parts of Europe to play card games such as Tarocchini. From their Italian roots, tarot-playing cards spread to most of Europe, evolving into a family of games that includes German Grosstarok and modern games such as French Tarot and Austrian Königrufen. In the late 18th century French occultists made elaborate, but unsubstantiated, claims about their history and meaning, leading to the emergence of custom decks for use in divination via tarot card reading and cartomancy. Thus, there are two distinct types of tarot packs in circulation: those used for card games and those used for divination. However, some older patterns, such as the Tarot de Marseille, originally intended for playing card games, are occasionally used for cartomancy.
Durak is a traditional Russian card game that is popular in many post-Soviet states. It is Russia's most popular card game, having displaced Preferans. It has since become known in other parts of the world. The objective of the game is to shed all one's cards when there are no more cards left in the deck. At the end of the game, the last player with cards in their hand is the durak or 'fool'.
Golf is a card game where players try to earn the lowest number of points over the course of nine deals.
Minchiate is an early 16th-century card game, originating in Florence, Italy. It is no longer widely played. Minchiate can also refer to the special deck of 97 playing cards used in the game. The deck is closely related to the tarot cards, but contains an expanded suit of trumps. The game was similar to but more complex than tarocchi. The minchiate represents a Florentine variant on the original game.
Ranter Go Round is a primitive, traditional, English gambling game and children's game using playing cards that also nowadays goes under the name of Chase the Ace.
A dedicated deck card game is one played with a deck specific to that game, rather than a pack of standard playing cards. Educational packs of cards were being printed by the late eighteenth century, initially designed merely to inform, but later becoming playable games. Modern card games are often sold with non-standard distributions of suits and ranks.
The Bourgeois Tarot deck is a mid-19th century pattern of tarot cards of German origin that is used for playing card games in western Europe and Canada. It is not designed for divinatory purposes. This deck is most commonly found in France, Belgian Wallonia, Swiss Romandy and Canadian Québec for playing French Tarot; in southwest Germany for playing Cego and Dreierles; and in Denmark for Danish Tarok.
Reversis, or more rarely, Réversi, is a very old trick-taking card game in the Hearts family. Its origin is uncertain, but it may have emerged in Italy before spreading to Spain and France. It is considered one of the two probable ancestors of Hearts, Black Lady and Black Maria, the other being Coquimbert or Coquinbert. It was very popular with the French aristocracy in the 17th and 18th centuries, and much played elsewhere, except in Britain. Initially quite simple, the game eventually developed more complex mechanics such as vast quantities of counters and a system of pools and side-payments. Its name may have possibly come from the reverse order and construction of the game itself, or even from its exceptional slam which, like "shooting the moon" in Black Lady, reverses the entire aim of the game.
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.
Industrie und Glück is a pattern of French suited playing cards used to play tarock. The name originates from an inscription found on the second trump card. This deck was developed during the nineteenth century in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The earliest known examples were made in Vienna in 1815. After the collapse of the empire in World War I, it remained the most widely used tarot deck in Central Europe and can be found throughout the former parts of the empire.
Tapp Tarock, also called Viennese Tappen, Tappen or Tapper, is a three-player tarot card game which traditionally uses the 54-card Industrie und Glück deck. Before the Anschluss (1938), it was the preferred card game of Viennese coffee houses, for example, the Literatencafés and Café Central. Even today Tapp Tarock is played sporadically. The exact date when it appeared is not possible to identify; some sources suggest it may have been developed in Austria in the early 19th century, but its mention in caricature operas in 1800 and 1806 suggest it was well known even by then and must have arisen in the late 18th century. The oldest description of the actual rules is dated to 1821. Tapp Tarock is considered a good entry level game before players attempt more complex Tarock forms like Cego, Illustrated Tarock or Königrufen.
The Fool is one of the 78 cards in a tarot deck. In tarot card reading, it is one of the 22 Major Arcana, sometimes numbered as 0 or XXII. However, in decks designed for playing traditional tarot card games, it is typically unnumbered, as it is not one of the 21 trump cards and instead serves a unique purpose by itself.
Droggn, sometimes called French Tarock is an extinct card game of the Tarock family for three players that was played in the Stubai valley in Tyrol, Austria until the 1980s. Droggn is originally local dialect for "to play Tarock", but it has become the proper name of this specific Tarock variant. An unusual feature of the game compared with other Tarock games is the use of a 66-card deck and that, until recently, there was no record in the literature of a 66-card game and no current manufacturers of such a deck. The structure of the game strongly indicates that it is descended from the later version of Tarok l'Hombre, a 78-card Tarock game popular in 19th-century Austria and Germany, but with the subsequent addition of two higher bids.
The game of Nain Jaune or Yellow Dwarf, also formerly called Lindor, is an "attractive and unique traditional French card game" using a board comprising five compartments or boxes. It is a reasoned game of chance because it combines the hazards of card distribution with the strategy of building suits. Nain Jaune, which is considered a classic French game, is named after the seven of diamonds, which is depicted as a yellow dwarf in the centre of the game board.
Coucou ("Cuckoo") is an historical French card game that uses a pack of 32 or 52 cards and is played by five to twenty players. It is unusual for being played with only a single card in hand. As a shedding game, there is only one winner who may claim the stakes, if there are any. The game has also been called As Qui Court or Hère.
Kille, also called Harlequin, Cambio, Campio, Kambio or Kamfio, is a game played with special playing cards, dating from a mediaeval French gambling game. In Sweden, the game had its heyday during the 1750s, but it is one of the oldest card games still played.
Cucumber is a north European card game of Swedish origin for two or more players. The goal of the game is to avoid taking the last trick. David Parlett describes it as a "delightful Baltic gambling game".
Cuccù or Cucù ("Cuckoo") is an Italian card game, over 300 years old, that is playable by two to twenty players and which uses a special pack of 40 cards. It is a comparing game in which there is only one winner, and is unusual in that each player only receives one card.
Vogelspiel or Hexenspiel was an historical Bavarian and Austrian card game for a variable number of players and played with special cards. The game is named after the bird or witch that appeared on the highest or lowest cards respectively. The name Vogelkarten is also encountered.
