Card Games: Marriage Group

This is a large subgroup of the ace-ten group of point-trick games. In these games there is a bonus for having the king and queen of one suit in your hand - typically 40 if the suit is trumps and 20 if it is a non-trump suit. When French-suited cards are used this combination is often called a marriage or a bela. In games that use German suited cards the scoring combination is the king and over-knave; with Spanish cards it is the king and horse. In these games there is very often a further bonus for winning the last trick, typically 10 points.

• Sechsundsechzig (66) (Germany)
• Gaigel (Germany)
• Dreeg (Germany)
• Schnapsen (Austria)
• Bauernschnapsen (Austria)
• Tute / Guiñote (Spain)
• Mariás (Czech Republic and Slovakia)
• Ulti (Hungary)
• 1000 (Tysiacha) (Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, Baltic States)
• 501 (Russia)
• Marjapussi (Finland)
• Huutopussi (Finland)
• Marianna (Italy)
• Rufmariasch (Banat) and the similar Austrian games Anrufen and Königrufen (the latter not to be confused with the Tarock game of the same name).
• Brouc (Switzerland)
• Pip-Pip (Britain)

I also include in the marriage group games which allow further bonuses for other combinations of cards in hand; Bezique and Pinochle include scores for 4 of a kind, trump sequence, and the special combination of Q and J, Marjolet fot the trump Jack with any Queen, and Chouine for K-Q, K-Q-J, A-K-Q-J, A-10-K-Q-J in any suit and for 5 brisques (aces and tens).

• Bezique (Britain)
• Marjolet (France)
• Chouine (France)
• Single Deck Pinochle (North America)
• Double Deck Pinochle (North America)
• Auction Pinochle - the classic version for three players, each hand paid for separately (North America)
• Three-player (Auction) Pinochle - a version with extra melds, played to a target score (North America)
• Two-player Pinochle (North America)
• Hoskin (Kurdistan)

Fans of two-player trick, meld and draw games such as Bezique, Marjolet and two-player Pinochle may also like to explore the game Penchant invented by “Jack Sharpe” and published in 1893, and some games of the Jass group such as Tartli, also known as Felsős.

The Jass group is another subgroup of marriage games, with scores for suit sequences and for four of a kind, and with the special characteristic that the jack and nine of trumps are promoted to be the highest cards.