Sussex Tarot

Sussex Tarot is a trick-taking card game for four players, based on traditional tarot games, but with an additional nominated trump suit. Players create alliances for the hand by secretly showing cards.

Overview

Before diving into the specifics, it might be useful to first get a sense of what the game is about. If you are already roughly familiar with the game, or otherwise just want to get to the details, feel free to skip ahead to the full rules.

Sussex Tarot is inspired by traditional tarot games, and as such, many of the features will be familiar to those acquainted with some already. The game is made up of a series of hands, each made up of 18 tricks, between two teams that vary from hand to hand, with the winner of an auction calling a card, the holder of which will be their partner. Cards are worth different numbers of points when captured in tricks, with one team trying to reach a particular target of card-points. There are also several bonuses available that may be worth considerable extra points, earned for collecting particular combinations, or winning the final trick with certain cards.

There are a couple of places where it differs noticeably from other tarot games, however. The first is that after the auction there are the 'card bids', where the three players not winning the auction will show the winner a selection of cards from their hand, aiding them in trying to call a card held by the next strongest player.

The other unusual feature is that along with the usual permanent trump suit, the winner of the auction nominates one of the other four suits to be a weaker trump suit.

The Rules

Players

The game is for four players, playing individually. Most hands will, however, involve two players playing in alliance against the other two, although some hands may involve a single player going alone against the other three.

Equipment

The game is played with a French-suited 78-card tarot pack, such as that used to play French Tarot or Danish Tarok.

Sussex Tarot is a zero-sum game, meaning that is well-suited to being scored by players 'paying' each other with sets of tokens (even when not playing for any monetary sums). These can be any set of tokens, but a selection of pre-decimal British coins (see below) is ideal. Probably at least four distinguishable types would be preferable.

Alternatively score may be kept by any convenient means, such as paper, slate, or electronically.

Card ranking

56 of the cards are in the familiar English/French suits of Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts, and Spades. These differ from 'standard' Anglo 52-card packs with the addition of a court card ranking between Queens and Jacks. We will refer to these (as is frequently done in English) as Cavaliers, or 'C' for short. The pip-cards of each suit (1-9 and T (for 10)) rank in usual order for black suits (Clubs/Spades), but in reverse order for red suits (Diamonds/Hearts). Altogether the cards in these suits rank, from high to low:

Collectively we refer to these four suits as the symbol suits.

The remaining cards consist of 21 cards numbered from 1-21 (for which we will use roman numerals to clearly distinguish them from numbered cards of the other suits), and a single unnumbered card, which we shall refer to as the Fool (or F). In this game these 22 cards form their own suit, with the Fool as the highest, and the rest running down in numerical order (thus making it a Type III Tarot game), to the I (also known as the Pagat). This suit will be refered to as the old trumps, or just olds.

Card-point values

Each card is worth a certain number of points when won in tricks. The primary aim of the game is for your side to win a certain number of the available points. The point distribution is that which is common to many Tarot games, namely:

Card Card points
Fool, XXI, I (the 'trull' cards) 5
Old trumps II-XX 1
Kings 5
Queens 4
Cavaliers 3
Jacks 2
Symbol suit pip cards 1

The total number of points in the pack is 130 — 24 in each of the four symbol suits, and 34 in old trumps.

If you are familiar with other Tarot games, these points are counted in ones, so that these values correspond directly to the amount they are worth. If you are unfamiliar with other Tarot games then that probably makes no sense, and is best disregarded (although the curious reader may find this article on counting points in Tarot games enlightening — in this game the cards are counted in ones, so none of the techniques described therein are required).

Scores

As point values can become fairly large, and are usually in multiples of 3 or 6, points are traditionally viewed as equivalent to monetary values in British pre-decimal currency (£sd), with each point being worth one penny (1d).

In this system, there are 12 pennies to 1 shilling (12d = 1s). Amounts above one shilling are usually written as a number of shillings, followed by a slash, and then a number of pennies (or a dash — for 0 pennies). See this section on the Wikipedia page for a clearer explanation.

Although amounts below a shilling are usually just written as a single number with a 'd' (e.g. 3d), in this game amounts are often written in the same format with a slash preceded by a '0', as this consistency aids the arithmetic.

Some examples may help clarify matters further, giving the total number of pence (points) for each in brackets:

Throughout this page scores will be given in both shillings/pence and raw points (i.e. total pence).

There are also 20 shillings to the pound (20s = £1), meaning 240 pence. These values rarely come up in the game directly, except possibly cumulatively, and so are not usually referred to (and will not need to be notated on this page).

Coin set

I am not certain of the optimal set of coins for a game. Only a handful of small denomination coins are needed per player. A few one pound notes can be handy to have a decent sum without requiring too much change. As a hand can be worth quite a large sum, it is probably worth having a stock of a few pounds per player.

The Deal

At the beginning of the game, the initial dealer is determined by any suitable method. From then on, for each subsequent hand the deal passes to the left.

The cards are shuffled thoroughly, and then the dealer offers the pack to the player on their right to be cut. Dealer then distributes two cards to the player on their left, two to the next player round to the left, two to the next, and then two to themselves. This is repeated twice so that each player has six cards, after which dealer places two cards in front of them, slightly to the left, as the first trug. This whole process is repeated two more times, with each subsequent trug being placed to the right of the one before. At the end, each player has an 18-card hand, and dealer additionally has three packets of two cards laid out in front of them.

In other words, deal three packets of two, and a single trug of two cards. Then repeat this two more times, which should empty the pack. Every bit of deal involves only two-card packets.

Once the deal is complete, players may inspect their hands, and organise them as they see fit. The three trugs remain face-down in front of dealer.

The Auction

When the player to the left of dealer (eldest) is ready, they begin the auction by saying 'four', which constitutes the opening bid. They are not allowed to pass or make any other bid at this point.

The auction continues to the left. On a player's turn to speak, they must either make a higher bid, or exit the auction by saying 'pass'. When a player has passed, they may not bid again this hand.

The auction continues until either there is just one remaining player (the rest having passed), or a player makes the highest possible bid. At this point the player making the highest bid becomes the declarer, with the other three players being the wardens.

Declarer gets some benefits compared to the other players:

The price of this is that declarer is obligated to make a certain number of card points to win 'game'. Failing to do so can result in substantial penalties.

Increasing bids do the following things:

The available bids are summarised in the following table, along with the size of card bids, the target, and the value of the game, which is what declarer will receive for successfully reaching the target. Note that only eldest may make a bid of '4', and they are obligated to do so. This does not preclude them from bidding again if they are able to (which they will be as long as no player has bid '2 high' before the auction reaches them again).

Bid Card bid size Declarer card-point target Game Value
4 4 66 6 6d
3 3 76 12 1/-
3 high 3 86 18 1/6
2 2 86 24 2/-
2 high 2 96 30 2/6

Once a player has become declarer, the dealer moves the right-hand trug, still face-down, to in front of declarer. They move the left-most trug to the player on declarer's left, and the middle trug in front of the player opposite declarer.

Declarations

Declarer now has the opportunity to make some declarations, which are statements about the cards they hold. Doing so will earn them immediate points from the wardens, and may serve to convince other players that they would be well-placed to attempt to partner with them. The cost of this is giving up information about their hand.

The possible declarations are:

After each declaration, declarer must show an appropriate set of cards to the other players to prove their holding. If there is more than one set of cards that declarer could show, they may choose which to show. They must show cards for each declaration made.

Declarer is not required to declare any holdings even if able to. They are also free to 'under-declare' if they wish, for instance declaring '8 old' even if holding 10 (and thus would be able to declare '10 old'). The following table summarises the bonuses, and gives the value of each.

Holding Value
8 Old 2 2d
10 Old 3 3d
Trull 1 1d
Vibrant Court 1.5 1½d
Full Court 2 2d
Three Kings 1 1d
Four Kings 2 2d
Three Queens 2 2d
Four Queens 3 3d
Four Royals 2 2d

Declarer indicates they are finished with declarations by saying 'pass', after any declarations they have made. Some example declarations then are:

For many hands, declarer will be unable to make any announcements. In such case, they simply say 'pass'.

When the declarations are done, each warden pays the value of each declaration to declarer.

Card bids

After the declarations (if any), the three wardens will each make their card bids. This involves showing cards to declarer, nominally to entice declarer to pick them as a partner.

The number of cards shown by each player can be 2, 3, or 4. This number is set by the winning bid of the auction. Each warden selects precisely this many cards from their hand, and places them face-down in front of themselves. Care should be taken (particularly for winning bids of '2' or '2 high') to distinguish these card bids from the trugs in front of those with them. Card bids should be placed further away from players, with the trugs closer to them.

Declarer then inspects each of these bids in turn, starting with the player to their left, and moving around the table clockwise. They are free to look at their hand at the same time, provided they keep the cards clearly separate so there can be no possibility (deliberate or accidental) of them switching cards with some of their own.

Once declarer has looked at a bid, they move onto the next. They may not inspect previous card bids. Declarer should make their best attempt to study each bid for a similar length of time and amount of detail, even if they are not interested in the contents, so as not to tip off the other players who they are likely to call as a partner. It is largely to their benefit to not give this information away.

It is probably wise for declarer to decide at this point which card they plan to call for partner (see calling a card, below), although they must keep this information secret.

Once declarer has inspected all three bids, the wardens take these cards back up into their hands.

Declarer exchange

After the card bids have been inspected and returned, declarer takes up the two cards of their trug into their hand. They must then discard two cards from their hand, face down, and place these in front of the player to their right to form a trug for that player (who does not currently have one). These may be any two cards they wish, including cards made in declarations, or cards just received in their trug.

Bonuses

As well as the points available for declarer's side taking enough card-points to make game, there are various other bonuses available during the play of the hand. These are mostly for taking certain combinations of cards in tricks, or winning the final trick with certain cards. Either side may score bonuses, and there may be several scored for each side in any given hand.

Declarer, though, has an opportunity to announce their side's desire to undertake bonuses ahead of time, which doubles the value of them, but means they must pay this value should they fail.

The bonuses

The following are the set of possible bonuses, along with a description of each:

It is possible to get up to two Young Martlets, and three Martlets. Getting two or three is said with a prefix of 'double' or 'triple' e.g. 'triple martlets', or 'double young martlets'. To get more than one, the runs of cards must not overlap, but may be touching. To illustrate, here are some example winnings in old trumps, and the relevant Martlet bonus:

If both sides win a Martlets (or two), they 'cancel out', scoring as if both sides had one less. So if they both get one, they score as if neither side had any. If it's 2 vs 1, it's scored as though it's 1 vs 0. The same applies separately to Young Martlets.

The following table gives the value of each bonus:

Bonus Value
Trull 3 3d
Four Kings 3 3d
Hundred 9 9d
Valat 9 9d
Four Queens 21 1/9
Ultimo Pagat Ultimo 9 9d
Young Ultimo 12 1/-
Annointed Ultimo (card category ultimo value) (card category ultimo value)
Young Martlets 1st 6 6d
2nd 9 9d
Martlets 1st 12 1/-
2nd 18 1/6
3rd 21 1/9

For an annointed ultimo the values are given in the card category table below.

For any ultimo, the specified card must win the trick. It is not enough for the holders partner to win the trick with a different card.

As in most, if not all, games with ultimos, playing a card that could be used for an ultimo (an 'ultimo' card) in the final trick constitutes an attempted ultimo, and any failure counts as if the opposition scored the bonus. This is true even if the declarer is stung. If an ultimo is announced then players must usually hold onto the card as long as possible, as described in the card-play section of the rules.

If the same side plays two distinct ultimo cards to the final trick, this is known as an ultimo clash, and both ultimos automatically fail, regardless of who wins the trick.

Announcing bonuses

At this stage declarer is able to announce a number of bonuses if they so wish. They may announce as many as they like, including announcing none. As with declarations, they indicate that they have finished by saying 'pass'.

Any announced bonus made will be scored double. However, any bonus announced but not made will score instead for the defence.

There are a few points to note on bonuses:

Warden exchange

Once any bonuses have been announced, the wardens now get to exchange cards. Each of them picks up their trug, and places down two cards face-down in their place — these cards will not be involved in the play of the hand. There are some restrictions on the cards allowed to be placed into these trugs. Specifically, players must not lay down:

These cards are thus always in play.

Players should always take the trug cards into their hands before discarding to form the new trug, even if they lay down the same two cards (so as to make this fact non-obvious).

Cards placed in a players trug count towards the card-point total of their side. Additionally, any trumps in the trugs (old or young) count towards any Martlet or Young Martlet bonus for both sides. So for instance, discarding the VI means that either side can get a Martlets with say the I-V, VII-XI, or IV, V, VII, VIII, IX.

Calling a card and naming young trumps

Once the wardens have laid down their trugs, there are two remaining actions by declarer before the play of the hand begins.

Declarer will call a card, and then they will name a symbol suit to be young trumps.

Calling a card

Declarer names a card out loud. The holder of this card will be on the same team as declarer for this deal.

They may name a card they have seen in one of the card bids, or a card they have not seen. They are even allowed to call a card they hold themselves, in which case they will play alone in a silent solo.

There are however some cards that are not allowed to be called (ordinarily, with one exception). These are known as the banned cards. Declarer may not call:

Whoever holds the card that declarer calls should not indicate that fact in any way. The fact that they are partners with declarer should only become apparent when they play the called card (although players may be able to guess that fact earlier based on the decisions made in play).

If declarer calls a card that is in another player's trug, they play alone against the other three, although again this fact will only be known by the player whose trug it is in. This situation is known as stinging the declarer, and has some special scoring associated to it.

Implicit calling

Holding certain combinations, declarer is allowed to call a card implicitly. This means that the card is not immediately obvious to the defenders (although it will be to the holder), but is still specified unambigously. This may make it harder for the defence to try to flush out the called card, and also allows a way for declarer to give their partner useful information about their hand.

The allowed implicit calls are:

Declarer is allowed to make such a call while also holding the implicit card, in which case they will be playing a silent solo.

'Announcing' a solo

Declarer is also permitted to 'announce' a solo, which they may wish to do on the rare occasion when they hold an extremely strong hand. Doing so increases the points at stake for the hand, as described below.

The way that this is 'announced' is by declarer calling a banned card that they hold when the time comes to call a card. This is the only situation where calling a banned card is allowed.

However, declarer may not call a banned card entirely freely — there is strict criteria about the card that may be called, depending on the cards that declarer holds. Thus the announcement not only signals that declarer will play alone, but also gives away information about the cards they hold.

As a minimum, the declarer must hold the Fool. Holding that, the card they must call, in decreasing order of priority:

Note that this means in the rare situation that declarer holds XV-Fool, but has no Kings, Queens, or Pagat, they are unable to announce a solo.

The following table gives some examples of calls, and what that means about declarer's hand:

Called card Cards declarer must hold Cards declarer must not hold
The Fool The Fool XXI
XXI Fool, XXI XX
XX Fool, XXI, XX XIX
XVI Fool, XXI, XX, XIX, XVIII, XVII, XVI XV
Pagat (I) Fool, XXI, XX, XIX, XVIII, XVII, XVI, I (none known)
King of Spades Fool, XXI, XX, XIX, XVIII, XVII, XVI, King of Spades The Pagat (I)
Queen of Hearts Fool, XXI, XX, XIX, XVIII, XVII, XVI, Queen of Hearts The Pagat (I), all four Kings

Naming young trumps

Declarer then names one of the four symbol suits to be young trumps. This suit will beat a card of any of the other three symbol suits, but still lose to any old trump.

Declarer can name whichever of the four symbol suits that they wish, with no restrictions (except the unusual case they must comply with announced bonuses of young and annointed ultimo).

Altogether they will say, for example, "I call the Cavalier of Hearts, and Diamonds are young". After such an announcement the play of the hand begins.

The Play

The player to the left of the dealer (the one who bid '4') leads to the first trick, with play continuing to the left (clockwise). The winner of each trick leads to the next, until all 18 tricks are complete.

Players must follow suit if they are able to. If they are unable, they must play a trump, which can be old or young. If old trumps are led, and a player has none, they must play a young trump if able. If young trumps are led, a player with none must play an old trump if able. A player with no cards of the led suit, and no trumps, may play any card. In Parlett notation this is the usual Tarot rule f,t,r.

Beyond this a player is not obligated to head the trick, attempt to win it, or otherwise be constrained in their play in any way. The only exceptions are if an ultimo has been announced by declarer. In that case:

A trick is won by the highest old trump played. If no old trumps are played, it is won by the highest young trump played. If no trumps of either sort were played, it is won by the highest card of the led suit.

Each player collects the cards they win in tricks face-down in an individual pile placed in front of them. Wardens should place these piles on top of their trug at right-angles, so that the two cards of the trug are clearly distinguished from the pile of won tricks (the trickpile).

Resolution

After all tricks have been played, the three wardens each turn their trugs face-up so that the cards are visible. Any trumps should be noted down, so that any Martlets or Young Marlets can be properly resolved. It should also be noted if the called card was in any players trug — if so, this player is the stinger.

Once this is done, each side will pool their cards together for counting. If a player stung, then their pile should be counted separately from the other defenders or declarer.

Along with counting the card-points, it should be resolved whether either side has made any of:

Once this has been done, then it can be determined whether declarer's side has made enough points for game, and the set of bonuses for each side is known. We then move on to scoring.

Stinging/h4>

If declarer calls a card that is in another player's trug, that player is said to have stung the declarer. This happens whether or not it is accidental (if declarer calls some arbitrary card, that happens to be discarded), or deliberate (if the stinging player buries a card they have shown in their card bid).

A player who stings declarer will have to pay penalties if they do not take strictly more card-points than declarer. See the scoring section for this case.

Scoring

The hand is now scored. Scores are zero-sum, so can conveniently be kept by exchanging coins or tokens, but equally can be recorded on paper or some other medium. Usually the total for each player is first calculated, and then payments made. Alternatively the payment for the game and the bonus may be made separately, as the scoring works slightly differently.

Scoring the game

The score for the game depends on what manner of game ended up being played. But in all cases, they are scored relative to the game value. This is set by the level of the winning bid, as laid out in the bidding table earlier in the page.

Declarer is with a partner

If the game is a normal partner game, and declarer's side wins:

If declarer's side loses, these scores are reversed, and declarer additionally has to pay calling penalties to the defenders.

Declarer plays a solo

If declarer plays a solo (calling a card they hold, whether silent or 'announced') and wins:

If declarer loses, these are reversed, and declarer also pays calling penalties.

If declarer is playing an announced solo, all payments are doubled.

Declarer is stung

The case where declarer is stung is a bit different. There are two sets of obligations in this case — not only is declarer aiming to get the target nunber of card-points, but the stinger is attempting to take more card-points than declarer.

The declarer pays or gets paid as if they had played a solo, with the exception that they do not pay calling penalties. So they simply gain or lose three times the game value, spread equally amongst the defenders.

In addition to this, the stinger makes or receives payment based on the number of card-points they make alone (i.e. not counting the other defenders).

The net effect of these is that, for the game:

Scoring bonuses

Independently of the scores for the game, there are scores for any bonuses made by either side.

Each bonus has an associated value as indicated in the earlier bonus table. As with the game value, quite how the bonuses are scored depend on the type of game played.

Declarer is with a partner

Each side simply scores for any bonuses made, paid by the other side. The simplest way to do this is to add up all the bonuses for one side, subtract the bonuses from the other, and make payments from this net value.

Any bonuses announced by declarer count double.

Declarer plays solo

Much like the value for game, defenders pay or receive the value of bonuses singly, while declarer pays or receives three times the value.

Announced bonuses count double their value.

An announced solo doubles the total value of bonuses — any bonuses announced in an announced solo therefore count at quadruple rate in total (double for announcing bonus, double again for announcing solo).

Declarer is stung

In the case that declarer is stung, the bonuses depend on whether or not the stinger succeeds:

Note that in either case, the non-stinging defenders will not score for bonuses, although they may lose points if the stinger fails and declarer makes some bonuses.

Calling penalties

If declarer fails their contract (and hasn't been stung), then they also must pay a calling penalty. This is split evenly amongst the defenders. Declarer's partner (when they have one) neither pays nor receives payment. This amount is in on top of the normal game value paid for the loss.

The amount of the penalty is equal to the game value multiplied by a penalty factor which depends on the called card. These penalty factors are given in the card category table.

Card categories

Cards belong to different categories of relevance when being called. This affects two things:

Category Cards Penalty factor Ultimo value Number of cards
Banned Fool, XVI-XXI, I, Kings, Queens 5 N/A 16
Ale XIII, XIV, XV 4 2/- (24) 3
Small beer II-XII, Cavalier, Jack of young trumps 2 1/- (12) 13
Water Plain suit Cavaliers, Jacks, pip cards of young trumps 1.5 0/6 (6) 16
Gubber Plain suit pip cards 1 2/- (24) 30

Scoring examples

To come.

Ending the game

After the hand is scored, the next hand begins in much the same fashion, with the deal passing to the left.

The game is usually played for a fixed number of deals, ideally a multiple of four. A decent session is 16 deals, but 8 may be preferred if time is an issue.

History

This game originates from the '20s, on the Sussex coast. It started very roughly as an imagining of the kind of game that may have developed had Tarot games migrated from the continent to Sussex, although very quickly departed from this brief into its own entity.

Games that influenced it to varying degrees include the Tarot games Danish Tarok, Hungarian Tarokk, Ottocento, Koenigrufen, Germini, French Tarot, as well as non-Tarot games Briscola Chiamata, and Quinto. Countless others undoubtably also provided influence in more subtle ways.

It is very baroque, by design. At some stage I plan to write up some rules for a simpler version of the game which may serve as an introduction, or if a lighter game is desired.

You can read more about the design of the game in an upcoming blog post.

Contact

If you have any thoughts about the game, questions / feedback (or even to organise a game!) feel free to get in touch at: sussex-tarot 'at' repiqued-interests.co.uk.