happy 2011!!

with 2011, don basilio is introducing his new& improved tag list! just select some words from the list, & your post will be found in no time! check back regularly, for the list is constantly updated!

THE TAG CLOUD

Uh , tarot, horse, pig, acorn, justin, beiber, jack , jog, skat, poker, pontoon, alcohol, gem, pure, arsenic, ancient, germany, france, eunuch, Holland, ombre, Denmark, tronhelim sheep ,knife , stone, trappola, scart, Darwin, creationist, arses, false, morality, poker, bridge, farce, mother, truc, jeu, piker, jass, belote, sixty six, gold, silver, horse, theist, deist, Theresa, poo, india, bhang, tun, newmarkert, piquet, picket how, willy, wikileaks, hypno, eroto, machia, tag, poly, pitch, ball, mahjongg, wan, mee, tar, trap, mouse, horse ,tiger, turtle, soup, don, ottavio, giovanni, leporello, improved, tag, list

scarto- a simple tarot game for 3 players

you need a 78 card tarot deck for this. it dos'nt matter wether it is french or italian suited.
first. deal out all cards in groups of 5. to the three players . the remainding 3 cards form the "scart" 
the dealer ( choose by any means you wish) takes the 3 cards, & discards 3 cards from his hand in exchange for the 3 in the scart. the result counts to the dealers's tricks- so think about it like the 'crib' or 'box' in cribbage - but you must not put kings or any of the top 3 trumps (1, 21, & fool) into it- otherwise it is too easy

PLAY

the dealer plays any card to the first trick. then the person to his right plays another card. continue with the third.
now. note the suit of the first card played. the highest ranked card (ace low, king high)  of that suit wins, unless a trump is played. then , the highest trump played wins the lot, even if the subsequent player follows the suit of the first card.

SCORE

the cards score thus

kings, 1, 21, fool ( honours) -----5 points
queens-----4 points
cavalier-----3 points
jacks-----2 points

all others, incl. the trumps that are not honurs----- 1 point

now. the traditional method is to take the number of cards you won, divide that by 3, & subtract from that the total number of points you got from the aforesaid cards . howeveer, I personally find that so tedious that I leave it out!
 
the deal passses on to the right, once a hand is played. game ends once all   3 players get to deal

 
EXTRA RULES
reversed ranks

you may wish to reverse the rank of the pip cards in the red suits. so, the red suits , hearts & diamonds, or cups& coins rank

K (high), Q, , C, J, ACE, 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10(low)

the black suits rank
K (high), Q, , C, J , 10, 9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2, ace (low)


happy playing!
:-)

tarot, continued- how to recgonise italian court cards from a long way away

the courts of the sword (top) & baton (bottom) suits

the suit cards of the coin (top) & cup (bottom) suits

some of my eagle eyed readers may notice that there is italian text in the corner  well, that is the name of the card & its rank. well, the name is in 2 parts

take "re di coppa " for example re means "king" and coppa means cup so it is "king of cups"

now. here are the rest of the suitsspade= swords

bastoni=batons

denari=coins

here are the court card names

re=king

donna-queen

cavallo=cavalier

fante=jack (not labelled in this deck)

ah, yes, the tarot cards

the pic on top is of the court cards of each suit. from left to right, they are the
king
queen
knight (cavalier)
jack (knave)

for convinience's sake, I shall refer to the knight as a cavalier (so as to prevent confusion between a King  and a Knight)

they rank
king , then queen, cavalier, jack

the king scores 5 points the queen 4. the cavalier 3, & jack 2

Karnöffel (part 2)

the deal

first, deal 1 cards to each player.  then, turn it up. the suit of the lowest  card of the 4 is the trump suit.
non trump suits rank  K-Q-J-10,9, 8,7,.......4,3,A (note the lack of 2s)
now. deal 4 more cards to each player.

play commences. first, the player to the dealers left plays a card. note it's suit 
then, the next player plays a card.
continue till everyone has played a card.
now.the highest card of the suit of the first card played, wins the 3 others. 

this is the rule so long as no trumps are played. now, the trumps follow a really odd sequence. 

the JACK is the top trump. it beats all others.
the SEVEN is the next highest, provided it is the first card played. otherwise it is powerless!
the 6 is the third highest.
then comes the ACE ( it beats any king played
the 3, (beats any queen, but nothing above it, along with the previously stated cards)]
then the 4,(which beats jacks >,)
then the 5. which only beats number cards

the winner of the first trick plays the first card(leads) the next

happy playing!

Karnöffel ( part 1)

I would like to take a slight deviation from tarot for a moment, & consider one of the oldest card agmes known to us. partly the reason is that it got banned so often! the game in question is a rather relaxed game, once youve got the hang of it.

the game is for 4 players

THE DECK
now. the deck used for this game is customarily the special 48 card swiss deck. its suits are

bells=diamonds
flowers= hearts
acorns=clubs
sheilds=spades

the picture cards are the king the "ober" (equall to the queen) and "under" (the jack) also, the tens are represented as flags-but you can forget that, because it is seriously hard to get hold of
:)
otherwise, tale a normal 52 card deck, & remove the jokers & 2s

tarot cards- 1- an introduction

as I have said in my previous post, tarot cards are essentially normal card decks with attitude- with the addition of 22 cards, 21 numbered and a fool/excuse/matto
but before that, you must know of the two types of suits- french & latin

the top row shows the familar "french suits" whilst the bottom row shows the latin suits
they are ,correspondingly: (l-r in the pic)
clubs = batons
spades = swords
diamonds = coins
hearts = cups

(note- there are various systems as to how the suits equate, but at least for this blog, we'll stick to this)

now, then there the trump cards



they are listed here in decresing order in (most)  tarot games: there is the 21, or mond, mund,
. the following 2 are corruptions by the germans  of the italian/ french mond/mondo, meaning world- the title of this card.
also note that the cards of the french deck ( top row) go untitled.
then , below that, is the 1, or pagat, the latter (again) a corruption of the italian bagatto - the trivial performer.
note, if you look at the cards in the last row, the trivial performer.... has the tools of a shoemaker

oh, the third card is the fool/excuse/matto- the origin of the name "excuse " is complicated, and will be explained at a later date



tarot, and other such games

it may come as a surprise to some people, that tarot cards were used for games rather than divination. the divinatory usage comes from the year 1781, when a french mystic, antonie court de gerbin published a book about their use ( aldough people have been using such cards for divination on and off several centuries prior, antoine really got it started)
another misconception is that normal 52 card decks stem from the tarot. false. more like the reverse . tarot decks were added by extending a 56 card deck (more about that later) with a suit of 21 numbered cards, and a unnumbered one called the fool ( or matto, or excuse, or skus, or 'gesteiss, depending on where you live)
speaking of the fool, the joker did NOT evolve from that. rather, the joker came from the game of euchre, (pron. juker) when the players felt that a top trump was needed.

somthing is rottern in the state of denmark

as I type this, on the 1st october, one day before,  on the 30 sept. in the year 1791, the  opera die zauberfloete  premiered
exactly 214 years to the day, a certan danish newspaper, the published a set of cartoons depicting muhammad. (we all know what happened next)
go figure



 somthing is rottern in the state of denmark
    hamlet


(and my sincere apologies to the offended parties)