Tarot card games

Tarot games are card games played with tarot packs designed for card play and which have a permanent trump suit alongside the usual four card suits. The games and packs which English-speakers call by the French name tarot are called tarocchi in the original Italian, Tarock in German and similar words in other languages.

Tarot cards were invented in northern Italy around 1420 for the purpose of playing cards and with their appearance came the first of the two great innovations in trick-taking games since they had arrived in Europe: the concept of trumps. At around the same time or slightly earlier, a similar concept arose in the game of Karnöffel. However, in this south German game played with an ordinary pack, some cards of the given suit had full trump powers, others were partial trumps and the 7s had a special role. These features have been retained in games of the Karnöffel family down to the present, but are never seen in tarot games.^[2] Suits with these variable powers are thus called chosen or selected suits to distinguish them from trump suits.^[3]