![]() The Kaschlan - the commanding card. From a 19th-century, Berlin-pattern pack. | |
Origin | Prussian |
---|---|
Alternative names | Kastellan, Kurrhahn |
Type | Shedding-type games |
Players | 2–5 (4 best) |
Age range | 10 and above |
Cards | 32 |
Deck | French |
Rank (high→low) | A K Q J 10 9 8 7 6 |
Play | Clockwise |
Playing time | 5-15 min |
Related games | |
Durak • Hund |
Kaschlan, Kastellan or Kurrhahn [1] was a simple card game related to the Russian game Durak or German game of Hund. It is for two to five players (four best) [2] and may be played with a Skat pack of 32 French- or German-suited playing cards or a standard 52-card French pack.
The origin of Kaschlan is not certain but it seems to have surfaced in German East Prussia in the early 19th century. [2] In 1882, Frischbier describes Kaschlan as "a popular family game in which the Kaschlan, Kaschlansche or Kaschlanka, Polish kasztelanka, (Queen of Diamonds), is the highest card." [3] Thus the name, both of the game and its top trump, comes from the Polish kasztelan which means "castellan" [4] and its resemblance to Durak suggests that it may have been originally Polish or Russian. Nevertheless, by the mid-19th century, it was a popular Prussian card game, especially among children and women, [1] and was well known enough to lend its name to Prussian idioms. For example, der Magen spielt mit dem Darm Kaschlan meant, literally, "my stomach's playing Kaschlan with my bowels" i.e. "my tummy's rumbling" or "I'm hungry". [5] Näs' on Muul spiele Kaschlan (in Danzig: Kurrhahn, "turkey" or "irascible person") meant "[his/her] nose and mouth are playing Kaschlan" and referred to old people who had lost their teeth and so their nose and chin were so close that they appeared to move together. [1]
The game is not recorded in German gaming compendia and, by 1873, was described as "no longer common" in Danzig, West Prussia, [6] but was still "a well known game of chance" in East Prussia in 1888. [4] Nevertheless, references to it continue to appear during the early 20th century. [7] [8] Frischbier records that there was often a lot of cheating to avoid becoming the "Kaschlan", a nickname for the loser. [3]
Playing cards marketed inter alia for Kasztelanskie were still being produced in Poland in 1972.
The game is played with a normal Skat pack of 32 French-suited cards. If German playing cards are used, the Obers replace the Queens and the Unters the Jacks, as normal. The Queen of Diamonds, the Kaschlan, is the commanding card and the only permanent trump. Apart from that, cards rank in their natural order: A > K > Q > J > 10 > 9 > 8 > 7.
Historically it is recorded that the game was also played with a 52-card pack. [9] There were also 24-card packs sold in Poland for Kasztelańskie.
The game is like a simple variant of multi-player, cut-throat Durak. The following rules are based on Illig: [2]
The aim is to shed one's hand cards as quickly as possible. The last player left holding any cards is the loser.
The dealer shuffles the pack, offers it to rearhand (to his right) to cut and then deals 5 cards to each player. The rest of the cards form the stock or talon and are placed in the middle of the table. The dealer turns the top card to indicate which suit is trumps. Players pick up their cards and play begins.
Forehand (to the dealer's left) now becomes the 'attacker' or 'giver' (Geber) and the player to his left becomes the 'defender' or 'taker' (Nehmer). The attacker places one or more cards of the same rank (e.g. Tens or Kings) in front of the defender. Either way, the attacker may not play more cards than the defender holds in his hand. The attacker then replenishes his hand from the talon, so that he has five cards. If another player also has cards of same rank as the card or cards on the table, he may reinforce the attacker by playing it and replenishing his hand likewise.
By this point there will be up to 4 cards on the table. The defender now attempts to capture all these cards individually, placing the captured cards on a common wastepile to one side. A plain-suit card (i.e. non-trump) may be beaten by a higher card of the same suit or by a trump card. A trump card may only be beaten by a higher trump.
Example (without trumps): the attacker places the ♦8 and ♠8 in front of the defender. If he now has fewer than 5 cards in his hand, he makes it up to 5 from the stock. Another player has the ♥8 in his hand and reinforces the attack by laying it next to the other Eights. If the defender has ♦K ♥J ♥A ♣8 and ♣A, he may place the ♣8 with the other Eights. He can then beat the ♦8 with the ♦K, the ♥8 with the ♥J and his ♣8 with the ♣A. He is unable to beat the ♠8 and must therefore pick it up. The attacker now lays down more cards.
Only when the defender has beaten all the cards played, may he replenish his hand from the stock, so that he has five cards again, and take over the role of attacker; whereupon the player to his left becomes the new defender. If the defender has to pick up a card because he cannot beat it. the attacker lays further cards down.
When a player is able to shed all his hand cards, he goes out and takes no further part in the game. If he was the attacker, the player before him becomes the new attacker and the defender stays the same. If he was the defender and succeeded in beating all the cards played, the next player in turn becomes the defender and the attacker stays the same. In unlikely event that both attacker and defender shed all their cards, the player after the defender becomes the new attacker.
The last player to hold any cards loses the game and is ribbed as the Kaschlan.
In the 52-card game, if the attacker plays two or more cards of the same rank, he may add another card of his choice, called the 'coachman' (Kutscher). There may therefore be up to 5 cards on the table for the defender to try to beat, including the coachman. [2]
In another variant, if the defender is unable to beat all the cards, the role of attacker rotates rather than remaining the same. [2]
Contract bridge, or simply bridge, is a trick-taking card game using a standard 52-card deck. In its basic format, it is played by four players in two competing partnerships, with partners sitting opposite each other around a table. Millions of people play bridge worldwide in clubs, tournaments, online and with friends at home, making it one of the world's most popular card games, particularly among seniors. The World Bridge Federation (WBF) is the governing body for international competitive bridge, with numerous other bodies governing it at the regional level.
A trick-taking game is a card or tile-based game in which play of a hand centers on a series of finite rounds or units of play, called tricks, which are each evaluated to determine a winner or taker of that trick. The object of such games then may be closely tied to the number of tricks taken, as in plain-trick games such as contract bridge, whist, and spades, or to the value of the cards contained in taken tricks, as in point-trick games such as pinochle, the tarot family, briscola, and most evasion games like hearts. Trick-and-draw games are trick-taking games in which the players can fill up their hands after each trick. In most variants, players are free to play any card into a trick in the first phase of the game, but must follow suit as soon as the stock is depleted. Trick-avoidance games like reversis or polignac are those in which the aim is to avoid taking some or all tricks.
500 or Five Hundred is a trick-taking game developed in the United States from Euchre. Euchre was extended to a 10 card game with bidding and a Misère contract similar to Russian Preference, producing a cutthroat three-player game like Preference and a four-player game played in partnerships like Whist which is the most popular modern form, although with special packs it can be played by up to six players.
In the card game contract bridge, the Losing-Trick Count (LTC) is a method of hand evaluation that is generally only considered suitable to be used in situations where a trump suit has been established and when shape and fit are more significant than high card points (HCP) in determining the optimum level of the contract. The method is generally not considered suitable for no trump or misfit hands; also, the trump suit is generally considered to require at least eight cards in length with no partner holding fewer than three.
Skat, historically Scat, is a three-player trick-taking card game of the ace–ten family, devised around 1810 in Altenburg in the Duchy of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg. It is the national game of Germany and, along with Doppelkopf, it is the most popular card game in Germany and Silesia and one of the most popular in the rest of Poland. A variant of 19th-century Skat was once popular in the US. John McLeod considers it one of the best and most interesting card games for three players, and Kelbet described it as "the king of German card games." The German Skat Association assess that it is played by around 25 million Germans – more than play football.
Polish Club is a bridge bidding system which was developed in Poland, where it is the most popular bidding system, and which is also used by players of other countries. It is a type of small club system.
Sheng ji is a family of point-based, trick-taking card games played in China and in Chinese immigrant communities. They have a dynamic trump, i.e., which cards are trump changes every round. As these games are played over a wide area with no standardization, rules vary widely from region to region.
Tiến lên is a shedding-type card game originating in southern China and Vietnam. It may be considered Vietnam's national card game, and is also played in the United States, sometimes under the names Viet Cong, VC, Thirteen, or Killer.
Zar Points (ZP) is a statistically derived method for evaluating contract bridge hands developed by Zar Petkov. The statistical research Petkov conducted in the areas of hand evaluation and bidding is useful to bridge players, regardless of their bidding or hand evaluation system. The research showed that the Milton Work point count method, even when adjusted for distribution, is not sufficiently accurate in evaluating all hands. As a result, players often make incorrect or sub-optimal bids. Zar Points are designed to take many additional factors into consideration by assigning points to each factor based on statistical weight. While most of these factors are already implicitly taken into account by experienced players, Zar Points provides a quantitative method that allows them to be incorporated into bidding.
The trump coup is a contract bridge coup used when the hand on lead has no trumps remaining, while the next hand in rotation has only trumps, including a high one that would have been onside for a direct finesse if a trump could have been led. The play involves forcing that hand to ruff, only to be overruffed. A similar motive is met in coup en passant, where indirect finesse is used instead of direct.
In the card game contract bridge, DONT is a conventional overcall used to interfere with an opponent's one notrump (1NT) opening bid. DONT, an acronym for Disturb Opponents' Notrump, was designed by Marty Bergen, and is therefore also referred to as "Bergen over Notrump". Although the method is often criticized for being too nebulous, it remains fairly popular. The convention was first published in the September/October 1989 issue of Bridge Today.
Backwash squeeze is a rare squeeze which involves squeezing an opponent which lies behind declarer's menace. A variation of this, known as the "Sydney Squeeze" or "Seres Squeeze", was discovered in play at a rubber bridge game in Sydney, Australia, in 1965, by the Australian great Tim Seres; it was later attested by famous bridge theorist Géza Ottlik in an article in The Bridge World in 1974, as well as in his famous book Adventures in Card Play, co-authored with Hugh Kelsey.
Two-ten-jack is a Japanese trick-taking card game for two players that takes its name from the three highest-scoring cards in the game: the 2, 10 and Jack in three different suits.
Svoyi Koziri, also known as Svoi Kozyri or Vsyak svoi kozyri, is a Russian going-out card game for two players which some consider an elaboration of the Czech game Sedma. This game is one of perfect information and hence entirely of foresight and calculation. It differs from almost all other card games, in that the element of luck is eliminated, as, at any one time in the game, a player will know exactly which cards his opponent has.
Konter a Matt, Kontra a Matt or Konter a Midd is a Luxembourgish trick-taking card game played by four players. The game is popular enough to have been televised on RTL, Luxembourg's leading TV station and for tournaments to be organised. Konter a Matt is one of a family of similar games, known as the Couillon Group, played in the Benelux area. Other games in the family include the Belgian game of Couillon, known as Kwajongen in Flemish areas and Kujong in Luxembourg, the Dutch game of Troeven and the Belgian games of Brûte and Gamelle.
Newmarket is an English card game of the matching type for any number of players. It is a domestic gambling game, involving more chance than skill, and emerged in the 1880s as an improvement of the older game of Pope Joan. It became known in America as Stops or Boodle before developing into Michigan. In 1981, Newmarket was still the sixth most popular card game in Britain.
Maw, formerly also Mawe, was a Scottish card game for two players, popularised by James I, which is ancestral to the Irish national game of Twenty-five as well as the Canadian game of Forty-fives. Maw appears to be the same as Five Cards, a game described by Charles Cotton in the 17th century. The game disappeared from the literature after the period of the English Commonwealth, only to emerge in Ireland in the 19th century in new forms for two or more players and known as Five and Ten, Spoil Five and Forty-Five. These new variants are still played today, the latter has evolved into the Canadian game of Forty-fives.
Within contract bridge a stolen bid is a bid which usually lacks connection to the bidders own hand, and instead is used for blocking a certain bid to be expressed from the next opponent. To "steal a bid" is mainly done when the opponent to the right has given a conventional bid which the opponent to the left is likely to reply to. By far, most stolen bids are related to the Stayman convention. But also other conventions where some kind of reply is expected, the "reply range" can at least in theory be stolen. Blackwood is another example of a convention that might be exposed to a stolen bid.
Bruus, formerly Brausebart or Brusbart, is a north German card game for four players in two teams of two. It was once highly popular but has since died out except for a few pockets in the state of Schleswig-Holstein. As Brusbart, it was the ancestor of a family of similar games in northern Europe, including Swedish Bräus and Danish Brus which are still played today. Bruus features 'daring and tormenting' which has been said to give the game a certain charm. Once considered the national game of Hamburg, Bruus is a descendant of Karnöffel, the oldest identifiable European card game in the history of playing cards with a continuous tradition of play down to the present day. The game is named after the Bruus or Brusbart, once its top card, but now its second-highest trump.
Sjavs is a Danish card game of the Schafkopf family that is played in two main variants. In Denmark, it is a 3-player game, played with a shortened pack of 20 cards; in the Faroe Islands, where it is very popular, it is a four-hand, partnership game using a standard piquet pack of 32 cards.