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Trick-Taking Card Games Compared

In trick-taking card games, each player puts down one card in turn, you must follow the suit that was led if you can, and the highest card of that suit takes the trick unless someone has played a trump. Hearts, Spades, Call Break, Euchre, Twenty-Nine and Tarneeb all work this way. They part company on the deck, on who picks trump, on what you bid for, and on the score that ends the match.

Six trick-taking games and Gin Rummy, side by side

Game	Players	Deck	Trump	You play for	Match ends
Hearts	4, each alone	52, 13 each	None	As few points as possible: 1 per heart, 13 for the Queen of Spades	When someone reaches 100; lowest score wins
Spades	4, two pairs	52, 13 each	Spades, every hand	Your side's combined bid (1 to 13 each, or nil)	A side reaches 500, or falls to -200
Call Break	4, each alone	52, 13 each	Spades, every hand	Your own call, 1 to 13 tricks	After 5 rounds; highest total wins
Euchre	4, two pairs	24 (9 to Ace), 5 each	The up-card's suit, or a suit named in the second round	3 of the 5 tricks	A side reaches 10
Twenty-Nine	4, two pairs	32 (7 to Ace), 8 each	Set face down by the bidder, hidden until someone asks	Card points: a bid of 16 to 28	A side reaches 6 game points (or the other falls to -6)
Tarneeb	4, two pairs	52, 13 each	Named by whoever wins the auction	A bid of 7 to 13 tricks	A side reaches 41
Gin Rummy	2	52, 10 each	No trump and no tricks	Sets and runs; knock at 10 or less	First to 100

Cards rank Ace high in four of the six trick-taking games. Euchre puts two Jacks on top: the Jack of trumps (the right bower), then the other Jack of the same colour (the left bower), then Ace, King, Queen, 10 and 9. Twenty-Nine ranks every suit Jack, 9, Ace, 10, King, Queen, 8, 7.

Bid, avoid, or count points

Spades, Call Break, Euchre and Tarneeb are bidding games: you say how many tricks you will take, and your score depends on whether you did. Twenty-Nine bids too, but for card points rather than tricks. Only four ranks carry points (Jack 3, Nine 2, Ace 1, Ten 1), so a trick full of Kings, Queens, Eights and Sevens is worth nothing at all.

Hearts turns the goal around: you want to take as few points as you can. Gin Rummy has no tricks; it is here because it is the other classic people reach for when there are only two of them.

Picking one

Hearts, if you have never played a card game

No bidding, no partner, no trump. The 2 of clubs leads the first trick, and after that you try to stay clean. You can learn it in one hand. Play Hearts →

Spades, if you have never bid before

Trump is always spades and your partner never changes, so the skill is counting your hand honestly. Bidding nil, zero tricks, is worth 100 points made or lost. Play Spades →

Call Break, for a stricter Spades

Everyone plays alone, and you must beat the highest card of the led suit whenever you can. Out of that suit, you must trump, and overtrump a spade already played if you can. That takes most of the safe ducking out of the game. Play Call Break →

Tarneeb, for a proper auction

Bid 7 or more, name the trump out loud, and score the tricks you actually take, not the bid. Fail and you lose the full bid while the other side banks its tricks. Sweeping all 13 is called kaboot. Play Tarneeb →

Twenty-Nine, for hidden trump

At first only the bidder knows trump. You can ask to see it only when you cannot follow suit, and if you ask, you have to trump that trick if you hold one. Until it is shown, trumps win nothing. Play 29 →

Euchre, for a short game

Five cards each and a match to 10. The left bower is what catches new players: when hearts are trump, the Jack of Diamonds counts as a heart. Play Euchre →

Gin Rummy, for two players

Draw, discard, and knock when your unmatched cards add up to 10 or less. Knock too thin and your opponent can undercut you for a 25-point bonus. Play Gin Rummy →

Where tables disagree

All of these games have house rules. Here are four, and what our tables do.

Euchre: stick the dealer. If nobody takes trump, the dealer cannot pass a second time and must name it, so the hand is never thrown in. It is popular in the American Midwest, and our tables play it. British pub euchre adds a Joker, the Benny, as the top trump and usually runs to 11; ours has no Joker.
Tarneeb: the other "41". In Syria, and to some extent Lebanon, "41" (also called 400) is a separate game where each player bids alone, the four bids must total at least eleven, and hearts are always trump. Ours is the classic partnership Tarneeb, raced to 41, where the auction winner names trump. (Source: pagat.com.)
Twenty-Nine: the last trick and the half-bid. The name comes from an extra point for the last trick, but most players today leave it out, and so do we by default. In Bengal, Bihar and Jharkhand some tables double the game points lost when the bidders take less than half their bid. We score every round as one game point, changed only by a double or redouble. (Source: pagat.com.)
Call Break: the overtrump. Casual tables sometimes drop the duty to overtrump a spade that has already been played. Ours keeps it, along with the rules to beat the trick and to trump when void.

How the family fits together

Spades, Call Break and Tarneeb play almost the same trick: 13 cards each, Ace high, follow suit. The bid is what changes. Spades adds partners' bids together, Call Break makes every player answer alone, and Tarneeb holds one auction for the right to name trump. Twenty-Nine comes from another branch: pagat.com files it with the Jass games of central Europe, where the Jack and Nine of trumps are the top two cards. That is why its card order feels upside down if you learned on Spades.

The habits carry over whichever one you learn first: follow suit, count what has gone, and watch who has run out of a suit.