The Marriage group is a large family of

point-trick A trick-taking game is a card or tile-based game in which play of a ''hand'' centers on a series of finite rounds or units of play, called ''tricks'', which are each evaluated to determine a winner or ''taker'' of that trick. The object of such g ...

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 ...

s in which the 'marriage' of two cards, usually a King and Queen, plays an important role and attracts a bonus. They are believed to be descended from a German game, Mariagenspiel or Mariage, which dates back to at least 1715. Well-known games in this group include

Bezique Bezique () or Bésigue () is a 19th-century French melding and trick-taking card game for two players that came to Britain and is still played today. The game is derived from Piquet,''Transactions of the Philological Society'', Philological Socie ...

and the national card games of Austria (

Schnapsen Schnapsen, Schnapser or Schnapsa is a trick-taking card game of the Bézique ( Ace-Ten) family that is very popular in Bavaria and in the territories of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire and has become the national card game of Austria and Hungar ...

), Hungary (

Ulti Ulti or Ultimó, is Hungary's national trick-taking card game for three players. It is virtually unknown outside its home borders. History Its name derives from the winning of the last trick with the lowest trump, a feature derived from several g ...

), France (

Belote Belote () is a 32-card, trick-taking, Ace-Ten game played primarily in France and certain European countries, namely Armenia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Luxembourg, Moldova, North Macedonia (mainly Bitola), Bosnia and Herzegovina and als ...

), Switzerland (

Jass :Jass ''was also an early name for Jazz music. For other uses, see JASS.'' Jass ()David Parlett ''The Oxford guide to card games'', pg. 292-293, David Parlett (1990) is a family of trick taking, Ace-Ten card games and, in its key forms, a distin ...

) and the Netherlands (

Klaverjas Klaverjas () or Klaverjassen () is the Dutch name for a four player trick-taking card game using the piquet deck of playing cards. It is closely related to the card game klaberjass, which is popular internationally and also known as Bela, and vari ...

Description

Mariagenspiel (German for '' game'', using the original French word for marriage rather than the German word, ''Heiraten'') is the earliest and most typical representative of the group. It was first described in a 1715 ladies' encyclopedia printed in

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...

. The game's entry said that the game was popular among ladies, and the entry for ''playing card'' listed ' first among nine card games played with the German pack. Despite the marriage theme, the Queen was replaced by the equivalent male character in the German cards. Apart from the standard

Queen Queen or QUEEN may refer to: Monarchy * Queen regnant, a female monarch of a Kingdom ** List of queens regnant * Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king * Queen dowager, the widow of a king * Queen mother, a queen dowager who is the mother ...

/ Ober,

Jack Jack may refer to: Places * Jack, Alabama, US, an unincorporated community * Jack, Missouri, US, an unincorporated community * Jack County, Texas, a county in Texas, USA People and fictional characters * Jack (given name), a male given name, ...

/ Unter translation, the game was described precisely as detailed at Mariage. Games in this family are typically played by 2–4 players using a pack of 20–40 cards, with Aces and Tens scoring 11 and 10 points in tricks, respectively, and marriages scoring 40 points in trumps and 20 points in a plain suit.. An elaborated form of Mariagenspiel known under various names including

Klaberjass Klaberjass () or Bela is a trick-taking Ace-Ten card game that is most popular in German communities. In its basic form it is a 9-card trick-and-draw game for two players using a 32-card piquet pack. As in other point-trick games of the King� ...

and Bela is especially popular among

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

communities and spread worldwide. Its offshoots form the Jass group

Jack–Nine card games The Jack–Nine card games, also known as the Jass group, form a family of trick-taking games in which the jack (''jass'') and nine (''manille'') of the trump suit are the highest-ranking trump (card game), trumps, and the tens and aces of all suit ...

, characterized by the fact that the Jack and Nine of the trump suit are the highest trumps. According to

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 ...

, the modern German/Austrian variant of Mariagenspiel, Sixty-Six, which remains close to the original, is "one of the best two-handers ever devised". The "marriage" theme seems to have originated in France in the context of unrelated card games. Two-handed

and three-handed

Mariáš Mariáš or Mariasch a three-player, solo trick-taking game of the King–Queen family of Ace-Ten games, but with a simplified scoring system. It is one of the most popular card games in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, but is also played in Bav ...

and

are the most popular card games in the area of the former

Austro-Hungarian Empire Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...

....

, first documented in the

Low Countries The term Low Countries, also known as the Low Lands ( nl, de Lage Landen, french: les Pays-Bas, lb, déi Niddereg Lännereien) and historically called the Netherlands ( nl, de Nederlanden), Flanders, or Belgica, is a coastal lowland region in N ...

as a Jewish game, developed into Dutch

, Swiss

and French

and its variants,

Binokel Binokel is a card game for two to eight players that originated in Switzerland as Binocle, but spread to the German state of Württemberg, where it is typically played with a Württemberg pattern pack. It is still popular in Württemberg, where i ...

and

Pinochle Pinochle (), also called pinocle or penuchle, is a trick-taking, Ace-Ten card game typically for two to four players and played with a 48-card deck. It is derived from the card game bezique; players score points by trick-taking and also by form ...

, are further examples of popular games in the King–Queen or marriage family. The Marriage group is further subdivided into three: * King–Queen games are the largest group in which the marriage of a King and Queen or pairing of a King and Ober attract a bonus * Queen-Jack games in which there is a special bonus for a certain combinations of Queen and Jack or Ober and Unter * Jack-Nine games, in which the trump Jack and Nine are the top trumps.

Jack–Nine games

In this subfamily the Jack ("jass") and Nine ("manille") of the trump suit are the highest trumps. Games in this family are typically played by four players with the 32 French-suited cards of a piquet pack. The family contains the closely related French (

, Belote contrée) and Dutch (

) national card games. The Swiss national card game (

) is also a close relative but features a number of peculiarities, has spawned numerous variants, and is played with 36 cards. The popular South Asian card games Twenty-eight and Twenty-nine are derivatives of this family and share many of its characteristics. The earliest known games of this family were two-handed, such as

(also known as Bela) which is still played worldwide

References

{{reflist.

Description

Jack–Nine games

See also

References