This program will let you play Cego, the game played in the Black Forest region using a 54-card tarot pack.
Click here for the rules.
The distinctive feature is that in most bids, the bidder exchanges
all but one or two cards from his/her own hand and plays
for tricks using the ten undealt cards.
Both the cards set aside from the original hand, and those won in tricks,
count toward the final score. The goal is to take more than half the total
card points.
Here, who deals each hand doesn't matter. Everybody gets 11 cards.
Ten cards remain unseen. Make your bid.
Here if you pass, one of the other players will usually bid.
I changed the way of counting card points to make it easier for
people not familiar with classic tarot games to understand.
There are a total of 106 (not 70) points, and a positive contract is made if
the bidder takes 54 (not 36) or more card points.
In the play for tricks,
the bidder goes first.
The "Major Arcana" are always
trumps. The Fool is the highest trump. Play goes counter-clockwise. You must follow the suit led if you can,
and if you cannot, you must play a trump if possible.
The trick is taken by the player of the highest-numbered trump, or if no trumps
are played, by
the highest card of the suit led. Staves and swords rank from top to bottom KQJX987.
Cups and coins rank from top to bottom KQJXA234.
I simplified the rules for "one empty", "two empty", and "two different."
They must be genuine spot cards, and are not unable to win tricks though
it is unlikely.
It's my impression that skill plays less of a role in "Cego" than in other modern tarot games.
It seems most reasonable to me to think that the Tarot began as playing cards, for entertainment and games, when sufficiently sturdy paper / pasteboard was invented. The suit cards are like our own playing cards.
The trumps present common interfaith symbols that people from many traditions have found helpful in reflection and meditation.
My own experience has been that this can perhaps improve your life if (and only if) your intention is to stop focusing on life's "small stuff" and prepare you to be kind to those around you.
If there are really any intricate cosmic secrets here, I have
been unable to understand them.
Call me dumb or unspiritual if you like.
When I have actually seen the cards used for divination by practitioners,
they were obviously being used as mere props for lay-counselling.
Kings would rank highest, then queens.
Chivalric knights were sworn to serve queens, and pages were squires
to knights. In the trump suit, notice how often a card seems naturally
to take precedence over the one just below it. No reasonable person would deny that the cards are beautiful and meaningful, or claim that this is just a more complex version of "scissors, paper, stone".
* If, as in the old decks, the tower is the "House of God", then the Church defeats
the devil, and nothing below the heavens can take precedence over the Church.
As a kid, I spent quite a bit of time
with Waite's book and the tarot pack. I wondered about his hints
that he possessed
great secret knowledge. (Re-read his description of the "Hanged Man",
look closely at the Ace of Cups,
recall that in his own life he professed the Christian faith,
and then draw your own conclusions.) Today I appreciate him most as the first person
to write systematically about the western occult tradition.
At least some of his Golden Dawn fellow-seekers of "secret knowledge" eventually
found the Ignatian "Spiritual Exercises" more helpful.
There are more elaborate games than the one I've shared here. In most, a greater skill element comes from bidding
various contracts prior to play for tricks.
Tarot Game Rules -- links to more complicated games with bidding
Waite's Tarocky
The "Latin" suits may represent the military and government (swords),
the clergy (cups),
the business folks (coins),
and the laborers (staves).
The Magician ("juggler", "mountebank" or "sleight of hand artist") may have been introduced first, as a wild card like
our joker for some card games.
The High Priestess was a female pope ("la Papesse"). When it was decided
to introduce a second wild card, a female trickster might have been chosen as the
magician's counterpart. The legend of "Pope Joan" may have attached
itself to the card.
The next three cards may have been introduced together. The Empress would have precedence over the previous two cards, and the four Kings.
The Emperor, of course, is lord over the Empress. The Holy Roman Empire was in existence when the cards were developed.
The Hierophant is probably the Pope, to whom the Emperor owed obedience, at least in theory.
Romantic love has power over every human being. Waite called the first five cards "the captives of Cupid."
War interrupts the lives of Lovers and can take love even out of the human heart.
I've been told that the bonds between comrades-in-arms are stronger than between Lovers.
Strength ("fortitude") gives victory over the enemy Chariots. Socrates's four temporal virtues (fortitude, justice, temperance, and perhaps wisdom / judgement) may all be represented in the images.
The Hermit may originally have been Father Time, who wears down all Strength.
The Wheel of Fortune, or the cycle of Luck, operates through all Time and over the years.
Justice, rather than Luck, should determine what happens to a person.
The Hanged Man is a mystery. Perhaps this is an extrajudicial lynching.
Perhaps this is a cryptic representation of the One Who fulfilled the demands of the law's Justice by His death.
Everything represented up to now is subject to human mortality.
Temperance, living a wholesome life, gives the best chance of staying
healthy and avoiding premature Death.
The devil tempts us to live in ways that are not temperate or otherwise wholesome.
At the destruction of the Tower of Babel, the devil's agents were dramatically defeated. *
The Star shines high above all Towers.
The Moon outshines the Stars.
The Sun outshines the Moon.
At the Last Judgement, the Sun and all rest of creation will disappear.
A card representing a Fool (simpleton) was probably introduced to be playable at any time.
The World contains all the things that can possibly be, and
so it is the highest of all cards. Perhaps this is the
new World that will follow the Last Judgement.
and no declaring or scoring of melds, as the basic one.
Tarot History
Various Tarot Decks
Tarocchino -- downloadable book of tarot games. No-nonsense account of the history of the gaming cards and the bunko artists who made it an "occult mystery." Thanks!
The Castle of Crossed Destinies -- "semiotic fantasy novel"
Francis of Assisi
Christian Tarot Decks
Tarot and Evangelism -- prof at U. of Aberdeen divinity school. Like any evangelist, meeting "New Agers" where they already are.
Tarot of the Saints -- Biblical and historical images, some gnosticizing
Tarot of the Saints -- Amazon
Tarot of the Saints -- Margaret of Rome resists the devil, etc.
VI. The Lovers
Danish Tarot
French Tarot for Three
French Tarot for Four
Hungarian Tarot
Konigrufen -- complicated, casual tarot game
Swiss Troccas
Scarto -- primitive tarot game
Bid Tarot -- primitive tarot game with bidding