Trick-taking Game - History

History

According to card game researcher David Parlett, the oldest known trick-taking game, Karnöffel, was mentioned in 1426 in the Bavarian town Nördlingen – roughly half a century after the introduction of playing cards to Europe, which were first mentioned in Spain in 1371. The oldest known trumps appear in Karnöffel, where specific ranks of one suit were named Karnöffel, Devil, Pope etc. and subject to an elaborate system of trumping powers. Around 1440 in Italy special cards called trionfi were introduced with a similar function. These special cards are now known as tarots, and a deck augmented by tarots as a tarot deck. The trionfi/tarots formed essentially a fifth suit without the ordinary ranks but consisting of trumps in a fixed hierarchy. But one can get a similar effect by declaring all cards of a fixed or randomly determined suit to be trumps. This method is still followed by a number of modern trick-taking games that do not involve an auction. Parlett notes that while trumps were retroactively added to some games, such as Trappola, no example is known of trumps being removed from a game.

The trick-taking genre includes some of the most historically popular games ever played such as Bridge, Spades, Hearts, Rook, Belote, Skat, Euchre, and Pinochle. Most trick-taking games popular in the English-speaking world descended from the game Ruff and Honours, a simple "race"-type game where the object is to take as many tricks as possible. This game evolved into Whist, from which the majority of current plain-trick games was derived.

It is possible that the origin of the practice of counting tricks (in plain-trick games) was the counting of cards won in tricks. It was therefore a logical development to accord some cards a higher counting-value, and some cards no value at all, leading to point-trick games. Point-trick games are at least as old as tarot decks and may even predate the invention of trumps. All point-trick games are played with tarot decks or stripped decks, which in many countries became standard before 1600, and neither point-trick games nor stripped decks have a tradition in England.

While there is a number of games with unusual card-point values, such as Trappola and All Fours, most point-trick games are in the huge family of Ace–Ten card games. Pinochle is a representative of this family that is popular in the United States. Other examples include Belote and Skat.