Préférence, a painting by Viktor Vasnetsov |
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| Origin | Russia |
|---|---|
| Alternative name(s) | Prefa |
| Players | 3 |
| Cards | 32 |
| Deck | French |
| Play | Clockwise |
| Related games | |
| Ombre, Whist | |
Preferans (Russian: преферанс) is an Eastern European 10-card plain-trick game with bidding, played by three players with a 32-card Piquet deck. It is a sophisticated variant of the Austrian game Préférence, which in turn descends from Spanish Ombre and French Boston.
Popular in Russia since approximately the 1830s, Preferans quickly became the country's national card game. Although superseded in this role by Durak, it is still one of the most popular games in Russia. Similar games are played in Eastern Europe from Lithuania to Greece, where an earlier form of Russian Preferans is known as Prefa (Greek: Πρέφα). Compared to Austrian Préférence, Russian Preferans and Greek Prefa are distinguished by the greater number of possible contracts, which allow almost arbitrary combinations of trumps and numbers of tricks. Another distinguishing feature is the relatively independent roles played by the opponents of the soloist.
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Preferans is played by three active players with a French-suited 32-card piquet deck. Aces rank high and tens rank in natural position between jacks and nines. As happens with many three-player trick-taking games, the game is frequently played by four using the convention that in each hand the dealer pauses. Each active player receives 10 cards in batches of 2. The remaining 2 cards form a talon that will be used by declarer to improve his or her hand. Deal typically follows the scheme 2–talon–2–2–2–2.
In a bidding process it is decided which player declares the trump suit and required number of tricks and plays as a soloist against the two defenders. The soloist is known as declarer. Declarer's object is to win a certain minimal number of tricks. Defenders' main object is to prevent this.
Trick-play differs from Whist in that there is an obligation to trump. Eldest hand leads to the first trick. Players must follow suit if possible, else trump if possible. The trick is won by the player who played the highest trump or the highest card of the suit led. The winner of a trick leads to the next trick.
| bid | tricks | whist | value | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6♠ | 6♣ | 6♦ | 6♥ | 6NT | ≥6 | ≥4 | 2 |
| 7♠ | 7♣ | 7♦ | 7♥ | 7NT | ≥7 | ≥2 | 4 |
| 8♠ | 8♣ | 8♦ | 8♥ | 8NT | ≥8 | ≥1 | 6 |
| misère | 0 | – | 10 | ||||
| 9♠ | 9♣ | 9♦ | 9♥ | 9NT | ≥9 | ≥1 | 8 |
| 10♠ | 10♣ | 10♦ | 10♥ | 10NT | 10 | ≥1 | 10 |
Beginning with eldest hand, players bid for the role of declaring the contract and trump suit and playing as the soloist. Each bid consists of a number from 6 to 10 that indicates the minimal number of tricks to be won by declarer and a trump suit. The ranking is first by number of tricks and then by suit: spades, clubs, diamonds, hearts, and no trumps (in ascending order).[1] A special bid, misère, ranks between 8 tricks at no trumps and 9 tricks at spades.
The bidding can go over several rounds until all players but one pass. At the beginning of each round, eldest hand can make a bid that only needs to be as high as the highest bid so far. Otherwise each bid must be higher than the previous one.[2] A player who has passed may not bid again later, and a player who wants to bid misère must not make any other bids before or after. If no player bids at all, another special game, raspasovka, is played. Misère and raspasovka are special in that the object of players is to avoid tricks rather than win them. Both are described in their own sections below.
The highest bidder becomes declarer. Declarer shows the two cards in the talon to defenders before adding them to his or her hand and discarding any two cards face down. Unless declarer's bid was misère, declarer then declares any contract that ranks at least as high as the highest bid.
In trick-play, declarer must win at least the number of tricks indicated in the contract. If successful, declarer wins the value of the contract in pool points (×10). If not successful, declarer loses the value of the contract multiplied by the number of undertricks (tricks missing) in dump points (×10) and also pays the same amount to each defender in whist points (×1).
Preferans has the unusual feature that defenders have their own secondary objectives in addition to the objective of preventing declarer from keeping the contract. Moreover, defenders may drop out of trick-play or may play with open cards.
Beginning with the player who sits after declarer, each defender indicates whether he or she wants to whist. If neither defender wants to whist, declarer wins automatically without playing out the hand. Declarer scores the value of the contract, and no other scoring takes place.
A second incentive for whisting, besides the chance of spoiling declarer's contract, is that the whisting players are paid the value of the contract in whist points (×1) from declarer for each trick they win – regardless of whether declarer or defendant won their respective required number of tricks. If there is only one whister, then that player also gets the whist points for the tricks won by the other defender. However, there are significant penalties for the whister or whisters if the defenders do not win enough tricks. The required number is 4 tricks if declarer undertook to win 6 tricks, it is 2 tricks if declarer undertook to win 7 tricks, and it is 1 trick if declarer's contract is for 8 tricks or more. (See table above.)
If precisely one of the defenders decides to whist, then that player has a choice between playing normally and playing in the light. In the latter case both defenders' hands are displayed face-up on the table and the whister plays from both hands. In any case only the whister will score for this hand, positively or negatively.
If the defenders do not win the required number of tricks and there is only a single whister, then the whister loses the value of the contract in dump points (×10) for each undertrick. If this happens when there are two whisters, then the penalty is distributed fairly among them according to the principle that each whister is only responsible for his or her own undertricks with respect to half the required number of tricks. However, if the required number of tricks was 1, then it cannot be divided by 2 and the second whister is deemed responsible.
When the first defender decides not to whist against a contract for 6 or 7 tricks, the other defender has a third option besides passing and whisting. In this case the second defender may half-whist, in which case trick-play does not take place and declarer and the second defender each score as if both sides had won their required number of tricks and the defenders' tricks had been shared equally between both. The first defender does not score. However, if the second defender wants to half-whist, the first defender gets a second chance to whist, in which case the trick-play and scoring are done normally.
One distinguishes between three different kinds of points. The basic unit, whist points, is used for payments from one player to another. A pool point or dump point is worth 10 whist points. Pool points can only be won by winning a game as declarer (or by winning no tricks at all in raspasovska). Dump points are used for keeping score of the penalties that declarers or whisters have to pay when not winning the required number of tricks.
The scoring system as described so far is known as Sochi scoring, after the city of Sochi. To recapitulate:
Leningrad is ultimately equivalent to Sochi scoring. All dump and whist scores are doubled when writing, but not the pool scores. However, the pool scores are doubled at the end of the game before calculating its outcome.
The main difference of Rostov scoring in comparison to Sochi scoring is that the dump penalties for whisters in case the defenders do not win enough tricks are halved. Moreover, dump points are not used. Instead of losing a dump point, a player pays 5 whist points each to every opponent, resulting in the same overall result.
A common condition for ending the game is that each player must have reached a certain target score in pool points. A player who wins more pool points than that target score performs an operation known as American aid. The surplus pool points are transferred to the player with the greatest number of pool points among those who have not reached the target score yet. The receiving player pays for this with ten times as many whist points, i.e. the equivalent amount. If necessary this procedure is repeated with another player. If this is not possible because all players have reached the target score (and the game is over), the player reduces his or her dump accordingly to make sure that the pool points can be ignored in the final reckoning.
Scores are kept on score sheets that have a triangular area for each player. Two horizontal lines divide a player's segment of the score sheet into three parts. The top is the dump (sometimes referred to as mountain). The last number noted there represents the equivalent (negative) number of dump points. The middle is the pool. The numbers in the pool keep track of the player's pool points. The bottom area is subdivided further. On the left-hand side the player keeps track of the whist points received from the player's left neighbor, and analogously on the right-hand side. If four play, the middle corresponds to the player sitting opposite.
When a number in an area of the score sheet changes, the new value is written behind the previous value, separated from it by a point. Older numbers are not crossed out, even when they were in error.
A small circle or diamond in the center of the score sheet, where all the players' triangles meet, is used to keep track of general agreements such as the required number of pool points. When the game is over, each player's score consists of the whist points in the player's whist point are minus the whist points that other players have written for that player, minus 10 times the number in the player's dump area. An appropriate number is added to each score so that the sum of all scores is 0. The end score indicates how much a player receives or pays in terms of money.
Misère is a special bid that ranks between 8 at no trumps and 9 at spades but can be regarded as having a contract value of 10. A player who has made a different bid before cannot bid or declare misère, and a player who has bid misère before cannot bid or declare a different contract. Once a misère contract has been declared, defenders are not asked whether they want to whist. It is played at no trumps, with the defenders' cards face up on the table.[3] The defenders may discuss how to proceed.
If declarer does not win a single trick, declarer receives 10 pool points (×10). Otherwise declarer loses 10 dump points (×10) each for every overtrick. No further payments take place.
As a variation, there may also be a misère hand bid ranking between 9 at no trumps and 10 at spades.
Raspasovka(or raspasy) is played when no player made a bid. The object is to win as few tricks as possible at no trumps. Each player loses 1 dump point (×10) per trick. A player who does not win any tricks wins 1 pool point (×10).
There are a number of popular variations that can be agreed to. These involve the talon, the dealer (if four play), and escalations in case several raspasovka rounds occur in a row.
If four play, so that the dealer is pausing, the talon belongs to the dealer and the dealer (rather than eldest hand and then the winner of the first trick) leads to the first two tricks: first the top card of the talon, then the second card. After that, eldest hand leads to the third trick. A similar arrangement can be followed when three play.
In case of two consecutive raspasovka rounds, the second is played at doubled stakes. For further consecutive raspasovka rounds, this may either increase by 1 dump point or be doubled each time. (A limit may be agreed.) Raspasovka rounds may even be considered consecutive if they are only interrupted by unsuccessful declarations. Moreover, consecutive raspasovka rounds may lead to increasing minimum bids, making it progressively harder to leave raspasovka mode.
The dealer gets 2 mountain points for mis-dealing. Mis-dealing faults are:
These rules were introduced to reduce cheating. When a deal is declared failed, the same dealer should shuffle the deck again, let the player on the right cut it, and deal.
In a 4-player game the following rules exist for the dealer. Note, these rules are seen as archaic and are rarely used.
The popularity of Préférence appears to have started in Vienna in the early 19th century before it spread to Russia, where it peaked in the middle of the 19th century and is still played today.[4] Besides developing and diversifying within Imperial Russia, and then the Soviet Union, the game also expanded into other countries of Eastern and Central Europe. Modern variations include Austrian Illustrated Préférence and Balkan Préférence, which are both close the original game, and Greek Prefa, which is more similar to the Russian game. Many of the game's mechanisms are based on French Boston, a game that can be roughly characterised as Whist with suit-based bidding.