In germany our national card game is Skat which even is declared intangible cultural heritage of germany by the german UNESCO committee. Doppelkopf is a close second in terms of popularity.

Does your country have a national card game?

20 comments

  2. Scabby queen! I love it.

    Get ready for a not great description…

    Remove queen cards from the deck & keep one, shuffle etc – Deal the cards amongst the group. Each individual gets rid of double cards (so removing two 2s, etc), then the game begins! your neighbour takes a card from you (obviously choose from the back of the cards), move on to the next person, continue to remove doubles as you play, the person left at the end with the single queen card left is the scabby queen.

  4. bierki (Pick-up sticks) this board game appeared in Eastern Europe and was popular long before the appearance of bingo and backgammon. It appeared in the 18th century Rzeczpospolita, and after the partition in the Russian Empire. I did not catch it just know because I study history as a hobby

  6. Yep, Skat.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skat_(card_game)

    Three Player (no more, no less. Thou shalt have three players) trick taking game, which is taken very very seriously here. Even if you’re playing it drunk in a bar, don’t you dare to make a wrong move or suffer the consequences. I even heard of severe online bullying among the elderly, when their grandson shows them online Skat (but please don’t type online Scat).

    €dit: I should have read OPs post…Ü

  7. Yeah. Ironically we call it the Sueca (the Swedish(f)). You can read the instructions on [wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sueca_(card_game)). It’s a fairly algorithmic game to play, so there are plenty of “wrong” but valid moves. You can see old men start heated arguments over it.

    There’s also some variations like the Sueca Italiana (Italian Swedish, hehe) for 5 players, there’s the Bisca which is also similar.

    I’m partial to a game of Baldes de Merda (Shit buckets) myself. It’s much more physical and requires reaction and quick reflexes to hit the deck at the centre of a table. It can be pretty nerve-wrecking.

  8. Germany also has Mau-Mau:

    Mau-Mau is a card game for 2 to 5 players that is popular in Germany, Austria, South Tyrol, the United States, Brazil, Greece, Czech Republic, Slovakia and the Netherlands. Mau-Mau is a member of the larger Crazy Eights or shedding family, to which the proprietary card game Uno belongs (source: [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mau-Mau_(card_game)))

  9. “Wiezen” is a card game played in Flanders. 4 players , each with 13 cards, have to play in teams of 2 or sometimes alone to get over a certain number of tricks. Rules are similar to game of hearts, except at the start of a round, one suit is determined as trump suite. A trump card wins over a normal card.

    At the end of each round, points are awarded or lost depending on the number of tricks obtained by each team. Th teams are valid for a single round. It’s a game that can be played for a small amount of money.

  10. Tarot is a card game (with specific deck) I’ve played only with french people, I don’t know if it’s played elsewhere as tarot in other countries is more often known only as an esoteric divination thing.

  11. [Tarok](https://www.pagat.com/tarot/sltarok.html). It is a 3 or 4 player trick taking game played with a special 54 card deck that has four pip cards, jack, horse, queen and king in each of the four suits and a trump suit with cards 1-21 + Škis (joker, which counts as the 22.). This is the most popular and known game in much of the country.

    The only big exception is the Littoral region, where Italian games Briškula (briscola) and Tršet (Tresette) are much more popular.

  12. We play Jass, usually in the variant of Schieber. It’s a trick-taking game for four players in two teams. The winner is whichever team makes the most points. All in all it’s a bit like Hearts on older Windows PC, but more complex.

    In some villages of the Surselva in Graubünden as well as in some villages in the Wallis, people play Troccas/Troggu which are variants of Tarot played with a special deck.

  15. My parents used to play more Canasta and Whist, but I would say Bridge is the real king of card games in the UK. There are (or used to be, I haven’t bought a paper in years) Bridge puzzles in all the main newspapers every day – the actor Omar Sharif used to write one for the Observer. It’s considered a rather middle class game, and the traditional working class game in the UK is dominos rather than a card game per se, though everyone knows simple games like Sweaty Betty/Hearts, Blackjack and Rummy.

  16. On top of what is internationally known as Mau Mau, I’d say the true Dutch national card games would be Klaverjassen (closely associated with Belote and Tarbish) and, more regional to the south, Rikken.

  18. We probably have two Schnapsen/Jassen (a form of Schafkopf to our German neighbours) and the much more elaborate Tarrock played with a special deck of an extended deck of Kings, Queens, Riders, Boys, Ace/Tens (as worthless fillers) and a deck of numbered pictured cards I to XXI+Gschtiss

  19. *Sökö*, or 5-card stud poker with 4-card flush & straight in addition to the regular hands, used to be kind of a national card game, but it’s largely disappeared, probably due to the youger generations having access to other forms of fun, as well as internet poker not being built around this a bit simplistic poker game.

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