Königrufen

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Austrian-style 54-card Tarock hand:

Königrufen (King Call Tarock) is a 4 player Tarock variant played in Austria and nearby areas in Central Europe. Austrian Königrufen has a common core set of rules, with considerable variation in the types of announcements and bonuses to be permitted along with their scoring,with most groups of players creating their own house rules. Although widely accepted tournament rules have been developed, such rules vary depending on region.

1 History
2 Brief Description
3 The Cards
4 Game Bonuses
5 The birds
6 King Ultimo
7 Mondfang (capture of the XXI)
8 See also
9 External links

[edit] History

Königrufen evolved from the older 18th century tarock games which borrowed the concepts of bidding from the card game Quadrille (an Hombre variant) to determine who played whom.

[edit] Brief Description

Königrufen is a Tarock game for four players with 54 cards with a combined value of 70 points

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 the first trick. Like most trick-taking games, the winner of the last trick leads the next, until either all 12 tricks are played or until a player has failed to achieve an announced goal

Also five players may play with the dealer sitting out.

[edit] The Cards

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:

In black suits: king, queen, knight and jack 10, 9, 8 and 7
In red suits: king, queen, knight and jack, Ace, 2, 3 and 4.

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:

I - Pagat
II - Uhu
III - Kakadu, Kanari, Pelikan, Cohn
IIII - Marabu, Quapil, Wildsau, Lämmergeier
XXI - Mond (literally "moon",derived from the French "monde" meaning "world").
Tarock XXII is unnumbered and depicts a harlequin is often called the Sküs, Gstieß, or a number of other phonetic derivations of the French "Excuse"

The Sküs, Mond and Pagat are called the Trull (derived from the French "tous les trois" or "all the three"). Tarocks II ,III , and IIII are called Birds.

[edit] Game Bonuses

[edit] The birds

The birds are the lowest Tarocks:

I - Pagat/Spatz (Sparrow)
II - Uhu
III - Kakadu/Pelikan/Kanari/Cohn
IIII - Marabu/Quapil/Lämmergeier/Wildsau (or numerous other names)

The Pagat is a special bird as it also belongs to the Trull

The birds count as bonuses, if they win the appropriate trick. The Pagat must be won in the last trick, the Uhu in the penultimate, the Kakadu in the third to the last, and the Marabu in the fourth to the last.

They must win the trick if they are to count as bonuses. Even if the taker's partner captures a bird Tarock, the bonus is lost and counts as negative. They are also lost if they are announced and not successfully achieved.

[edit] King Ultimo

The King Ultimo bonus is scored, if the called king wins the last trick. The bonus is also scored if the taker's partner takes the called king in the last trick.