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.
Tarot cards were invented in northern Italy around 1420 for the purpose of playing cards. With their appearance came the first of the two great innovations in trick-taking games since they arrived in Europe: the concept of trumps. At around the same time or slightly earlier, a similar concept arose in the game of Karnöffel. In this south German game played with an ordinary pack, some cards of the given suit had full trump powers, others were partial trumps and the 7s had a special role. These features are retained in games of the Karnöffel family to the present, but are never seen in tarot games.[2] Suits with these variable powers are called chosen or selected suits to distinguish them from trump suits.[3]
- ^ McLeod, John. Hungarian Tarokk at pagat.com. Retrieved 19 January 2016.
- ^ Dummett (1980), pp. 190–191.
- ^ Card Games: Karnöffel Group at pagat.com. Retrieved 29 November 2023.