Königrufen

Königrufen or Königsrufen (German: "Call the King") is a four-player, trick-taking card game of the tarot family, played in Austria and Southern Tyrol, with variants for two, three and six players. As with other regional tarot card games, it is usually called Tarock (the German term for tarot card games) by its players. It is the only variant of Tarock that is played over most of Austria and, in 2001, was the most popular card game in Austria after Schnapsen and Rommé. By 2015, it had become "the favourite card game of Austrians". It has been described as the most interesting tarot game for four players, the "Game of Kings", a game that requires intelligence and, with 22 trumps in play, as good "training for the brain".

In comparison with other card games, Königrufen may be played with a wide range of possible contracts. The name of the game comes from the practice in the most basic contracts of naming a specific King in order to choose a playing partner, known as "calling a King". In most contracts the four players form two sides – either two against two or one against three – who compete to score the majority of the card points. According to the rules, the 54 cards have a total value of 70 points.

Although the basic rules of Austrian Königrufen are common, the contract announcements and bonuses and their values have a large number of variations. Many private groups play by their own house rules. In addition, more widely accepted tournament rules have emerged, although these vary considerably from region to region. This makes Königrufen the most varied of all the Tarock games. Regular tournament series have been held since the 1990s and, since 2008, an annual Austrian Final has taken place.

In a broader sense, the term ''Königrufen'' may be used for a family of closely related tarot games mainly played in other regions of the former Habsburg monarchy, most notably in Slovenia.

History

Background

The original form of the Tarock card game family emerged around 1425 in Northern Italy during the Early Renaissance. The most important feature of the new game was that 21 permanent trump cards, the ''trionfi'', were added to the existing suits.Parlett (2008), pp. 353, 367–368. Today these trump cards are also called ''Tarock'' in German-speaking countries and are usually numbered with Roman numerals. In addition to the trumps, a valuable card called the "Fool" was added, to which special rules applied. The Fool is often wrongly regarded as a precursor of the Joker in modern card games.Parlett, (1991), p. 34. Called ''L'Excuse'' in French, since it was played with a ritualized apology, it was later changed to ''Sküs'' in German.

According to the oldest known French rules of 1637 Tarock (or ''tarot'' in French) was a trick-taking card game for three players using 78 cards of designated values, the players vying with each other to score as many points as possible. In its heyday from about 1730 to 1830 Tarock was played with this rule framework across a large part of Europe. In addition, variants were developed for four players with two teams of two – usually similar in principle to the game of Troccas that is still widespread today in Grisons.

From the middle of the 18th century onwards, especially in the German-speaking world and in the Habsburg monarchy, the Tarock game went through a series of profound reforms:

*The most important innovation, introduced by the Spanish card game L'Hombre, was the principle of bidding (in most German card games called ''bieten'' or ''reizen'', but in Austrian Tarock usually ''lizitieren''). Now players competed in an auction, before the actual game started, in order to be able to play against an alliance of the others, the defenders. From the four-player version of L'Hombre, Quadrille, came the idea of choosing a partner by "calling" for a King (hence ''König-rufen'' which literally means "King calling"). Tarock variants such as the German ''Tarok Quadrille'' and the Italian ''Chiamare il re'', whose name means the same as "Königrufen", were based on this principle.
* The 78-card pack was stripped to make it easier to handle by omitting the lowest suit cards. This is how the 54-card pack, now produced almost exclusively in Central Europe, was created. Other Tarock variants also stripped out various (higher or lower) numbers of suit cards.Dummett, ''Twelve Tarot Games'', p. 9
*The Sküs lost its role as a special card and became the 22nd and highest trump card, while retaining its high value as well as its form and name."Tarock"
in ''Wien und Niederösterreich – eine untrennbare Beziehung?'' (2017), p.376. Retrieved 12 July 2018
*A talon was introduced, possibly from other card games, from which the winner of the auction could improve his hand.
*As an additional element, a bonus was introduced when the smallest tarock, the ''Pagat'', won the last trick. In Austria, a rule was added that this could also be announced before the game as "Pagat Ultimo" or "Pagat zum Schluss".
*The cards also changed in appearance: they used a French pack instead of Latin playing cards. The traditional motifs of the trump cards, known today mainly in the Tarot pack, were replaced by pictures of animals, vedute, social scenes or other images.
The culmination of this development was the game of Tapp Tarock, once very popular in southern Germany and Austria, and considered a good introduction to Tarock games, but now only widespread in certain regions. In Tapp Tarock, each of the three players is dealt 16 cards and 6 cards form the talon. Players bid to be able to play against the other two using six, three or none of the cards from the talon.

Emergence and development

The earliest reference to a four-handed variant of Tapp-Tarock involving the calling of a King occurs in an 1827 book, but by then it had presumably been played for several decades.Mayr and Sedlaczek (2016), pp. 16–17 Königrufen was devised as a four-player variant of Tapp Tarock with each player being dealt 12 cards instead of 16, but the talon still comprising six cards. As in the variants mentioned above, the principle for choosing partners in Königrufen was adopted from Quadrille.Dummett, ''Twelve Tarot Games'', pp. 147–172

The first description of Königrufen is found in 1827 in an appendix to the second edition of the book ''Anweisung zur gründlichen Erlernung des beliebten Tarok-Tappen-Spiels sowohl durch genaue Bestimmung aller Regeln und Feinheiten, als auch durch die Beobachtung und Auseinandersetzung mehrerer angeführter, sehr schwieriger Beyspiele'' ("Instructions for a thorough learning of the popular Tarok Tappen game, both by clear explanation of all rules and details, as well as by the observation and discussion of several accompanying, very challenging examples"). The first edition of 1821 (which contains the first known description of Tapp Tarock) had not mentioned Königrufen,
for a copy of the 1821 publication. Retrieved 12 Jul 18. from which it may be assumed that there had been a rise in the popularity of the game during the 1820s. Until recently, the second edition had been thought to have been lost; it was only made public in 2010, when the Lower Austrian State Library (''Niederösterreichische Landesbibliothek'') was able to acquire a copy from the Tax and Customs Museum in Rotterdam.

According to these rules, the 'forehand', i.e. the player who started the auction and led to the first trick, could announce a ''Tapper'' if he had a poor hand of cards. This was the lowest ranking contract in Tapp Tarock where the forehand was allowed to pick up all six cards from the talon if no one bid a higher contract. However, because it was all too easy to win, this contract was already obsolete in Tapp Tarock and was not actually played; instead a win was paid out to the player at a low rate; this was also done in Königrufen.

With better cards, the forehand could either call a King, announce a ''Dreyer'' (play three cards from the talon against the three other players) or a ''Solo'', which at that time did not mean the same as today's ''Solo Rufer'' but a ''Solo Dreier'' – where the declarer played alone against the other three without using cards from the talon. The other players could also bid these contracts.

Until the original source from 1827 had been recovered, the 1829 ''Neueste Allgemeine Spielbuch'' ("Latest General Book of Games") was the oldest known source for Königrufen which, as it turned out, contained an edited copy of the 1827 rules under the heading ''Tappen mit König oder Tarokrufen'' ("Tappen with King or Tarock Call"). From this, Tarock experts assumed that a King or a high tarock could be 'called' in the original form of the game. This turned out to be wrong with the appearance of the 1827 rules, in which only a King could be called. In the event that the called King was beaten by the opponents (or remained in the talon), a high penalty had to be paid. This was felt to be so harsh by Königrufen players that some of them used to call Tarock XX instead, the loss of which was far less of a worry and, if it were lost, was only of low value anyway. This is what the 1829 rules say:

This created a new line of Tarock games that developed into Zwanzigerrufen, Neunzehnerrufen and Hungarian Tarock. Meanwhile, in Königrufen, "King Capture" (''Königfang'') was usually scrapped, or if retained, its consequences were largely mitigated.

In 1840, the first book that dealt exclusively with Königrufen was published in Vienna: ''Thorough and easy-to-understand instructions for learning the popular game of Königrufen Tarock, or the art of learning to play the same in a short time, both theoretically and practically, according based on rules and examples.'' However, the rules differed considerably – in this description of Königrufen, players could only announce ''Rufer'' ("Caller") contracts, namely as a ''Dreier'' (with three cards from the talon) or as a ''Solo'' without talon. If you wanted to play alone, you could call a King in your own hand.

Different bidding contracts have survived a long time. In the book ''Der praktische Tarockspieler'' ("The Practical Tarock Player") by Moriz Bermann (1894) three different contracts are presented, two of which correspond roughly to the above; in the third, two cards or even just one could be taken from the talon. However, a combination of ''Rufer'' and soloist games was to prevail, in each of which three cards from the talon or none (Solo contracts) could be played. In the 2nd edition of Sigmund Ulmann's ''Illustrirtem Wiener Tarokbuch'', only the forehand could play a ''Rufer'' with talon and without further announcements. Above this, a ''Rufer with Pagat'' and a ''Solo Rufer'' without a talon could be played. Even higher in the auction was the ''Dreier'', which had now freed itself meaningfully from the three talon cards and became the name for soloist games against three defenders; and the highest game was therefore the ''Solo Dreier'' without talon. By now, this was the basic structure of the game as it is today, with the difference that, today, a ''Pagat Rufer'' always ranks higher than a ''Solo Rufer'' in the auction.

Transition to modern Königrufen

Today's Königrufen has many more contracts than its predecessor, including those that can be played even with a weak hand of cards. Many of these have been imported from other card games during a long process that went on throughout the 20th century. As Königrufen boomed in the period between 1880 and 1920, it evolved into a form with just four possible bids: two with a partner and two solo. In each case the lower (easier) bid enabled the declarer to expose the talon and choose 3 of the cards; the upper (harder) bid was played without looking at the talon.

As time went on, more and more contracts were added, many of which were 'negative games' where the aim was not to win tricks or to win just one, such as ''Piccolo''. Today there are no less than 12 contracts permitted in the Austrian Final which range in game value from 1 to 8 game points. In addition there are 8 special bonuses which include four 'Birds'

Development of the birds

The (usually four) lowest tarocks are called Birds (''Vögel'', usually dialectically ''Vogerln'' = "little birds"). Their special feature is the bonus to be made from the final tricks of the game, corresponding to their respective number. Thus if Tarock I wins the last trick or Tarock II wins the penultimate trick, etc., the player earns a bonus.The section is based on John McLeod: ''Owl or eagle? The Eagle Owl in Austrian Tarock'', The Playing-Card Volume 32, No 1, Jul–Aug 2003, pages 33–36, unless otherwise stated. Consequently, there is also a penalty for losing a bird in such an attempt.

The oldest bird is the Tarock I, the Pagat. Its role in the last trick is clearly older than Königrufen itself. It was first attested in Italy during the 16th century. It has been known as ''bagatto ultimo'' in Piedmont since the 18th century. At that time Milan belonged to the Habsburg monarchy, and in this way the bonus and the term came to Austria. There it was further introduced that the ''Pagat ultimo'' can also be declared beforehand, very probably taken from a similar announcement in ''Hundertspiel'', an Austrian version of the originally Italian card game, Trappola. The ''Pagat ultimo'' became a characteristic feature of almost all Tarock variants in the Habsburg Empire.

Although there were already similar bonuses in ''Hundertspiel'', it was only in the 20th century that the idea arose of extending the bonus of the ''Pagat ultimo'' to higher tarocks and earlier tricks, initially to the Eagle Owl (''Uhu''). In 1937, this name was first used for the Tarock II in Franz Unger's ''Kleiner Lehrbuch des Tarockes in seinen schönsten Arten'' ("Little Textbook of Tarock in its Best Ways"); there, however, the bonus was awarded for playing the Owl in the last trick. Later, the penultimate trick became the norm.

Traditionally, the term 'Eagle Owl' was assumed to be a humorous nickname for the eagle on the card, itself inspired by the Austrian imperial eagle, and analogous to the term 'cuckoo' (''Kuckuck'') being used for a pledge seal. However, research revealed that the term first appeared in 1902 in Hungary in the card game Alsós, a variant of Jass for three players, which was heavily influenced by Tarock and was also played in Austria under the name ''Vannakspiel''. There, the Deuce of Bells was called the Eagle Owl and a bonus was awarded if it took the penultimate trick. Why it was called an eagle owl is unclear; the same word, ''Uhu'', is used in Hungarian for an eagle owl, but its connexion with playing cards is not clear.

From the game of Alsós the concept was transferred to Hungarian Tarock and was part of an essential refinement of the game in the 1920s, which led to the variant, ''Illustrated Hungarian Tarock''. Now the ''Pagát uhu'' could also be played, i.e. the Pagat in the penultimate trick. The migration of the term to Austria seems to have led to its meaning being transferred to the Tarock II.

Apparently in analogy to the eagle owl, the Pagat was now nicknamed the 'Sparrow', which gave rise to the concept of "Birds". It was now obvious to include higher tarocks as well. This happened several times independently, resulting in several different names for the higher "Birds". Often bird names with the appropriate number of syllables were preferred. Thus the names Cockatoo (''Kakadu''), Pelican (''Pelikan'') and Canary (''Kanari''), among others, were coined for the Tarock III. For the Tarock IIII, names included Marabou (''Marabu'' i.e. the Marabou Stork), Bearded Vulture (''Lammergeier''), Cock-a-Doodle-Doo (''Kikeriki'') and Wild Boar (''Wildsau''); however ''Quapil'', a German family name of Czech origin (from ''kvapil'' = "he has hurried") has become generally accepted. In this case, too, it is unclear how this became the name of the card.

Playing up to the ''Quapil'' is the norm today; of the larger player communities only the ''Raiffeisen Tarock Cup'' restricts the Birds to the Pagat, Owl and Cockatoo. But some circles even play the Tarock V or VI as a Bird, the former being referred to as the Dodo (''Dronte'').

Present-day situation

Austrian law views Königrufen – like all variants of Tarock card games – as a game of skill (i.e. it depends more on the ability of the player than on chance), which is why it does not contravene the act on gambling monopolies despite usually involving (small) amounts of money being wagered.

Since 2004, it has also been possible to play Königrufen online at the game platform ''GameTwist.at'' (formerly ''Stargames.at'').

Tournaments

Only in relatively recent years have tournaments been organised for Königrufen. Since 1995, the ''Raiffeisen Tarock Cup'' has been held annually in Upper Austria (especially in the district of Mühlviertel). In 1997, the ''Hausruckviertel Tarock Cup'' began, which also includes parts of the state of Salzburg. These two cups use largely identical rules and from September to March each year they jointly organize just over 50 tournaments with up to 300 participants each. With the number of competitors in four figures, this makes Upper Austria the stronghold of Austrian Königrufen.

The largest competition outside Upper Austria is the ''Wiener Zeitung'' Tarock Cup, founded in 2002, initially held as the Vienna Tarock Cup (''Wiener Tarockcup'') with three tournaments and supported by the daily newspaper, Die Presse. Since 2005, it has been sponsored by the ''Wiener Zeitung'' and since then also bears their name. It became the umbrella for all public Königrufen tournaments in Vienna and Lower Austria, with occasional tournaments in Carinthia and Hungary. In addition, there is the smaller Tyrolean Tarock Cup (''Tiroler Tarockcup'') which began in 2008. In Styria, there has been a Tarot Cup since 2013, which is currently being sponsored by Casino Graz.

Austria Final

Since 2008, there has been an annual Austria Final (''Österreich-Finale'') in April in the Casino Linz, in which over 200 of the best players from the various cup competitions compete for the title of Austrian Tarock Champion (''Österreichischer Tarockmeister'').''Das Tarock-Österreich-Finale''
at tarockoesterreich.jimdo.com. Retrieved 12 July 2018 The competition uses the rules from the Hausruckviertl Tarock Cup. The top three to date have been:

Prominent players

The most famous player in the history of Königrufen was Sigmund Freud. In responding to a friend's criticism of his worn Tarock cards, he jokingly replied "let us have a little pleasure in 'unculture'" – an allusion to his work ''Civilization and Its Discontents'', whose original title was ''Das Unbehagen in der Kultur''.

In Vienna, Königrufen is also popular with politicians, journalists and the advertising industry. For example, the former federal chancellors Julius Raab (ÖVP), Franz Vranitzky (SPÖ), Wolfgang Schüssel (ÖVP) and Alfred Gusenbauer (SPÖ) were, or are, prominent Königrufen players. After his political career, Schüssel even designed his own set of Tarock cards, the proceeds of which were donated to charity. Karl Renner's passion for Tarock has been recorded, but it is not known specifically which he played.

Other Königrufen players include the ÖVP's former vice-chancellor, Wilhelm Molterer, head of the Senior Citizens' Association, Andreas Khol, and Minister of Economics, Reinhold Mitterlehner. Among SPÖ politicians, Königrufen players include former Minister of Transport, Rudolf Streicher, and former Federal Whip, Josef Kalina.

The former President of Caritas Austria, Franz Küberl, also plays Königrufen. He hosts a charity tournament every year just before Christmas in Graz. The best-known Königrufen players among journalists are editor-in-chief, Michael Fleischhacker (''Die Presse''), former editor-in-chief, Andreas Unterberger (''Die Presse'' and ''Wiener Zeitung''), former ORF director, Gerhard Weis, the ORF Head of Television, Heinrich Mis and ORF Editor, Roland Adrowitzer. Prominent women who indulge in the game are cabaret artist Lore Krainer, Vienna ORF regional director, Brigitte Wolf, cultural journalists Gabriele Flossmann and Eva-Maria Klinger, the former president of the Austrian National Bank, Maria Schaumayer, and former vice president of the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber, Ingrid Tichy-Schreder.

Literary accounts

In Friedrich Torberg's 1975 collection of anecdotes, ''Die Tante Jolesch'', about the interwar Austria, the game of Tarock surfaces again and again. A complete paragraph of the book is dedicated to a type of Königrufen:

According to Robert Sedlaczek