Bester Bube ("Best Bower") or Fünfkart ("Five Cards") is an historical German

card game A card game is any game using playing cards as the primary device with which the game is played, be they traditional or game-specific. Countless card games exist, including families of related games (such as poker). A small number of card ...

for 3–6 players played with a

Piquet pack Piquet (; ) is an early 16th-century plain-trick card game for two players that became France's national game. David Parlett calls it a "classic game of relatively great antiquity... still one of the most skill-rewarding card games for two" but ...

. It is one of the

Rams group Rams is a European trick-taking card game related to Nap and Loo, and may be played by any number of persons not exceeding nine, although five or seven make a good game. In Belgium and France, the game of Rams is also spelt Rammes or Rems, in Germ ...

of card games characterised by allowing players to drop out of the current game if they think they will be unable to win any tricks or a minimum number of tricks.''Card Games: Rams Group''
at www.pagat.com. Retrieved 16 Oct 2018 It may be an ancestor of Five-Card Loo.

Names

The game goes under a variety of dialectical names, some named after the top card the "Best Bower"; these include Bester Bube or Bester Bauer (High German); Bester Buern or Bester Buur (

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

); Besten Buur (

Holstein Holstein (; nds, label=Northern Low Saxon, Holsteen; da, Holsten; Latin and historical en, Holsatia, italic=yes) is the region between the rivers Elbe and Eider. It is the southern half of Schleswig-Holstein, the northernmost state of German ...

ish) or Beste Boer(en) (

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

). Alternatively it may be named after the five cards dealt to a hand e.g. Fünfkart (High German), Fiefkarten; Fiefkaart, Fiefkort or Fiefander (Holsteinish). A third name relates to the flush or sequence that sometimes scores in the game; these include Lenter (

East Frisia East Frisia or East Friesland (german: Ostfriesland; ; stq, Aastfräislound) is a historic region in the northwest of Lower Saxony, Germany. It is primarily located on the western half of the East Frisian peninsula, to the east of West Frisia ...

n); Lenterspiel (

Low German : : : : : (70,000) (30,000) (8,000) , familycolor = Indo-European , fam2 = Germanic , fam3 = West Germanic , fam4 = North Sea Germanic , ancestor = Old Saxon , ancestor2 = Middle L ...

); Lanterlu, Lanturlu or Lanterlui (Dutch). The latter is clearly related to the English name of the game

Lanterloo Lanterloo or Loo is a 17th-century trick taking game of the Trump family of which many varieties are recorded. It belongs to a line of card games whose members include Nap, Euchre, Rams, Hombre, and Maw (Spoil Five). It is considered a modificati ...

History

The game is recorded in the 18th and 19th centuries in German and Dutch game anthologies and dictionaries, appearing as early as 1781, in a Low German dictionary where it is equated with ''Lenter-Spiel'',Dähnert (1781), p. 63. and in 1785, as ''Bestebauer-Spiel'', a game with its aficionados in

Göttingen Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, t ...

. In 1802 it is mentioned as a "people's card game" in a Holstein dialect dictionary, both as "Lenter" and "Besten Buur", and ''buuren'' is described as "playing the card game of besten Bauren ic in which the ''Spadenbuur'' or ''Pique Bauer'' ("Jack of Spades", also figuratively a foolish person) is the highest card which beats all the others."Schütze (1800), p. 194. It is also recorded in 1808 in ''Das neue königliche l'Hombre'' as "Bester Bube"''Das neue Königliche l’Hombre'' (1808), pp. 323/324. and

Von Alvensleben von Alvensleben may refer to: * Christian von Alvensleben (born 1941), German photographer * Constantin von Alvensleben (1809–1892), Prussian general * Gustav von Alvensleben (1803–1881), Prussian general * 'Alvo' Gustav Konstantin von Alvens ...

includes it in his 1853 ''Encyclopädie der Spiele''.Von Alvensleben (1853), pp. 44ff It is still current in the 1905 edition of '' Meyer's Großes Konversations-Lexikon'', but by 1950 it appears to have dropped out of favour, being then described by Culbertson and Hoyle as "an obsolete card game similar to Loo". The games scholar

David Parlett David Parlett (born 18 May 1939 in London) is a games scholar, historian, and translator from South London, who has studied both card games and board games. He is the president of the British Skat Association. His published works include many pop ...

includes it in his 2008 ''Book of Card Games'', but agrees that it is "defunct".Parlett (2008), pp. 105/106. It appears to be a regional game: Parlett suggests it was played in the south and west of Germany, but it is also recorded in north Germany, for example in the area of

Celle Celle () is a town and capital of the district of Celle, in Lower Saxony, Germany. The town is situated on the banks of the river Aller, a tributary of the Weser, and has a population of about 71,000. Celle is the southern gateway to the Lü ...

Lower Saxony Lower Saxony (german: Niedersachsen ; nds, Neddersassen; stq, Läichsaksen) is a German state (') in northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, with , and fourth-largest in population (8 million in 2021) among the 16 ...

and in Hamburg, where it also appears to have been known as ''Bester Buern'' or ''Bester Buur''. Its rules are first recorded in ''Das neue königliche l'Hombre'' in 1808 and then appear in a Dutch card game handbook of 1810 as ''Beste Boer'' or ''Lanterlu'', and subsequently as ''Beste Boeren'' or ''Lanterlui'' in 1828 and 1844. The game was known in the

n dialect as ''Lenter'', which also referred to the possession of five trumps in the game, also called a ''Bauerchen'', or to the five top trumps. Lenter was equated to the English

or Lanteraloo and the Dutch ''Lanterlu'' or ''Lanturlu'', and the ''Holsteinisches Idiotikon'' of 1800 also states that the Bower of Spades was the highest trump, indicating that in the earliest rules there was just one fixed top trump card, unlike the later rules which introduce 2 variable ones and more complex rules. In

, the game was also called ''Fiefkaart'' or ''Fiefander''.Mensing (1928), pp. 78, 80. Bester Bube may be related to Juckerspiel and hence

Euchre Euchre or eucre () is a trick-taking card game commonly played in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Great Britain, and the United States. It is played with a deck of 24, 28, or 32 standard playing cards. Normally there are four players, two on e ...

; the last was described by Parlett as "characterised by the promotion of two Jacks to topmost position as Right and Left Bowers, a feature variously represented or paralleled in late 18th-early 19th century west German games such as

Réunion Réunion (; french: La Réunion, ; previously ''Île Bourbon''; rcf, label= Reunionese Creole, La Rényon) is an island in the Indian Ocean that is an overseas department and region of France. It is located approximately east of the island ...

, Bester Bube and Kontraspiel." Bester Bube (pronounced "Boober") means "Best Jack" or "Best Bower" (the original names ''Bester Buur'' or ''Bester Bauer'' meant "best farmer") and is named after its highest card, originally the Jack of Spades, but later the trump Jack. The second highest trump is the jack of the same suit colour, the ''Unterbube'' ("Under Bower" or "Under Jack") or ''Nebenbube'' ("Side Bower" or "Side Jack"). Although Bester Bube is sometimes equated in the literature with Five Cards (''Fiefkort, Fünfkart'', etc.), the latter may have been played without the feature of two top Jacks and hence why Seelmann, in commenting on Reuter's 1867 work, ''De Reis’ nah Konstantinopel'', reports that ''Fünfkart'' "was mostly called ''Fiefkort mit'n besten Buren''."Seelmann (1880), p. 513.

Rules

Bester Bube is played between 3 to 6 players using a 32-card

French-suited cards French-suited playing cards or French-suited cards are cards that use the French suits of (clovers or clubs ), (tiles or diamonds ), (hearts ), and (pikes or spades ). Each suit contains three or four face/court cards. I ...

. The following rules are based on von Alvensleben. In the

trump suit A trump is a playing card which is elevated above its usual rank in trick-taking games. Typically, an entire suit is nominated as a ''trump suit''; these cards then outrank all cards of plain (non-trump) suits. In other contexts, the terms ''trum ...

, cards rank as follows: Best Bower, Under Bower, Ace, King, Queen, Ten, Nine, Eight, Seven; and, in the remaining suits: Ace, King, Queen, (Jack), Ten, Nine, Eight, Seven.

Dealing

The first

dealer Dealer may refer to: Film and TV * ''Dealers'' (film), a 1989 British film * ''Dealers'' (TV series), a reality television series where five art and antique dealers bid on items * ''The Dealer'' (film), filmed in 2008 and released in 2010 * ...

is the player who draws the lowest card from the pack. The dealer antes five

chips ''CHiPs'' is an American crime drama television series created by Rick Rosner and originally aired on NBC from September 15, 1977, to May 1, 1983. It follows the lives of two motorcycle officers of the California Highway Patrol (CHP). The serie ...

to the pot, shuffles the pack, offers it to the player to the left to cut and then deals five cards to each player, anticlockwise, in packets of 3, then 2. The next card is turned for

trumps A trump is a playing card which is elevated above its usual rank in trick-taking games. Typically, an entire suit is nominated as a ''trump suit''; these cards then outrank all cards of plain (non-trump) suits. In other contexts, the terms ''tru ...

Dropping out

After the first deal and after reviewing their

hands A hand is a prehensile, multi-fingered appendage located at the end of the forearm or forelimb of primates such as humans, chimpanzees, monkeys, and lemurs. A few other vertebrates such as the koala (which has two opposable thumbs on each " ...

, players may choose to "play" or "pass" provided there is more than the dealer's ante of five chips in the

pool Pool may refer to: Water pool * Swimming pool, usually an artificial structure containing a large body of water intended for swimming * Reflecting pool, a shallow pool designed to reflect a structure and its surroundings * Tide pool, a rocky pool ...

. The first deal is a 'force' in which everyone must play.

Exchanging

Forehand The forehand in tennis and other racket sports such as table tennis, squash and badminton is a shot made by swinging the racket across one's body with the hand moving palm-first. In tennis, except in the context of the phrase ''forehand volley ...

, the player to the dealer's right, exchanges as many cards as desired with the

talon Talon or talons may refer to: Science and technology * Talon (anatomy), the claw of a bird of prey * Brodifacoum, a rodenticide, also known as the brand Talon * TALON (database), a database maintained by the US Air Force * Talon, an anti-vehicle- ...

. Forehand is followed by the remaining players in anticlockwise order. This continues until everyone has had 2 opportunities to exchange or the talon is exhausted. The talon is then placed to one side. The trump face-up belongs to the dealer who may exchange cards in the same way as the others before exchanging with the trump card. It is thus a major advantage to be the dealer.

Play

Players must follow suit if able; otherwise are free to play any card. There are additional rules for the first two tricks as follows: * First trick. Forehand must lead with the Best Bower or, if that is not held, any other trump card. Lacking both, forehand may play any card face down and announce "Trump!" If another player has the Best Bower, it must be played to the first trick, with the exception of

rearhand Card players are those participating in a card game. Various names are given to card players based on their role or position. Position Games of Anglo-American origin In games of Anglo-American origin played in English-speaking countries, ...

(the dealer), who has the right to keep it provided he or she can win the trick with another trump. * Second trick. The winner of the first trick must lead a trump to the second in like manner. Whoever holds the Under Bower (the one of the same suit colour as the trump Jack) must play it with the exception of the dealer who may hold it back if able to win the trick with another trump. For the third, fourth and fifth tricks, the winner of the previous trick may lead any card.

Scoring

Players win one chip for each trick taken. A player who fails to win any tricks is

bête Bête, la Bête (french: Jeu de la Bête), Beste or la Beste (''Jeu de la Beste''), originally known as Homme or l'Homme (''Jeu de l'Homme''), was an old, French, trick-taking card game, usually for three to five players. It was a derivative of Tr ...

and has to pay a penalty equivalent to the contents of the pot. All bêtes are paid in at once, but if the pool becomes too large, it may be agreed that they can be paid in successive deals. Players may pass if there is a bête in the pool, but all must play if it only holds the basic ante. The earliest rules suggest the bête increases each time in from 5 chips to 10, 15, 20 and so on.

Footnotes

References

Literature

* _ (1808)
''Das neue Königliche l’Hombre nebst einer gründlichen Anweisung wie Quadrille...''
J.G. Herold, Frankfurt and Leipzig * _ (1821). ''Nieuwe beschrijving der meest gebruikelijke kaartspelen, zoo als die hier te lande gespeeld worden.'' H. Moolenijzer, Amsterdam. * _ (1907). ''Korrespondenzblatt des Vereins für niederdeutsche Sprachforschung'', Volumes 28-33. * _ (1967). ''Schleswig-Holstein'', Schleswig-Holsteinischer Heimatbund. *

Culbertson, Ely Elie Almon Culbertson (July 22, 1891 – December 27, 1955), known as Ely Culbertson, was an American contract bridge entrepreneur and personality dominant during the 1930s. He played a major role in the popularization of the new game and was wide ...

and

Edmond Hoyle Edmond Hoyle (167229 August 1769) was an English writer best known for his works on the rules and play of card games. The phrase "according to Hoyle" (meaning "strictly according to the rules") came into the language as a reflection of his gene ...

(1950). ''Culbertson's Hoyle: The New Encyclopedia of Games''. Greystone Press. * Dähnert, Johann Carl (1781). ''Platt-deutsches Wörter-Buch: nach der alten und neuen Pommerschen und Rügischen Mundart'', Christian Lorenz Struck, Stralsund. * List, Gottlieb Christian Heinrich (1785). ''Beyträge zur Statistik von Göttingen''. Berlin. * Mensing, Otto (1928). ''

Schleswig-Holsteinisches Wörterbuch The Schleswig-Holsteinische Wörterbuch ("Schleswig-Holstein Dictionary") is a regional dictionary of the Low German language in the dialects used in the state of Schleswig-Holstein i.e. Schleswig, Holsteinish and Hamburger Platt and their sub- ...

'', Vol. 2 (F–J), Neumünster: Wachholtz. * Meyer, Adolf and Hans Türschmann (2004). ''Endeholz: Quellen und Darstellungen zur Geschichte des Dorfes und seiner Einwohner'', Türschmann, Endeholz. * *

Parlett, David David Parlett (born 18 May 1939 in London) is a games scholar, historian, and translator from South London, who has studied both card games and board games. He is the president of the British Skat Association. His published works include many pop ...

(2008). ''The Penguin Book of Card Games'', Penguin, London. * Seelmann, Prof. Dr. Wilhelm, ed. (1880). '' Reuters Werke'', Vol. 6. Leipzig, Vienna: Bibliographisches Institut. * Schütze, Johann Friedrich (1800). ''Holsteinisches Idiotikon'', Part 1 (Buuren), Villaume, Hamburg. * Schütze, Johann Friedrich (1802). ''Holsteinisches Idiotikon'', Part 3 (Lenter), Villaume, Hamburg. * Stürenburg, Cirk Heinrich (1857). ''Ostfriesisches Wörterbuch''. Carl Otto Sende, Aurich. * Von Alvensleben, L. (1853)
''Encyclopädie der Spiele''
Otto Wigand, Leipzig. * Wachholtz, K. (1910). ''Korrespondenzblatt des Vereins für Niederdeutsche Sprachforschung'', Volume 30. {{Historical card games Euchre group German card games French deck card games 18th-century card games Multi-player card games Dutch card games