Hello everyone,
There are lots and lots of trick card games, and some of them can be found here in the game room. However, in the last few days I have been thinking about the fact that no such games have been added here so far that can only be played by two players. This is understandable, as there are not many such games in general, at least to my knowledge. Most of them require at least three players, or ideally two teams, and playing them with two would make them less fun or interesting (bouillabaisse is a fairly good example in my humble opinion). So I thought I'd put together a small list of games I know and suggest them for your consideration. Firstly, I think it could be quite an interesting innovation to make the Playroom more unique, and secondly, it could be a good alternative for times when it's hard to get more people together for a proper game. Trick-taking games are definitely not one of the most popular ones, and unless you play regularly with a group of people or have pre-arranged, you have to wait a while until enough people are at the table. Some fun games for two would make this problem a little easier.
The first game I would like to mention is 66. It has already been suggested a few times before, so I won't talk about it at length. It originated in Germany and is one of the marriage-type card games, in which part of the game involves melding a king and queen of the same suit for additional points. In this way it is similar to belote for instance. The aim of each round is to win tricks and gain 66 card points, the first player to succeed can then close the round and, depending on the situation, score a certain number of game points. The winner is the one who scores 7 game points. Variations for up to 4 players also exist. You can read the rules here:
https://www.pagat.com/marriage/66.html
The second game, known as piquet, comes from France and is quite old, it was already mentioned by Rabelais in the first half of the 16th century. According to various sources, it is still played today. I'm not sure how popular it really is, but for sure it's a very sophisticated and well-thought two-player game. It is played with a deck of 32 cards and the object of the game is to score as many points as possible during six deals, here called parties. This is achieved by improving your hand using a talon, choosing various combinations and features of your hand to declare and then playing a standard trick game. I'd say that optimizing this game for the playroom might be a bit harder than the other games on this list, but it's certainly doable. Check the rules here:
https://www.pagat.com/notrump/piquet.html
With the third game we return to Germany again. It's rather not one of the more popular ones, but that doesn't make it uninteresting. The mate is a card game which of course refers to chess in its name. It uses a standard deck of only 20 cards in which both suits and rangs have their values. The goal is to achieve that your opponent cannot match any of his cards to yours, both in suit and rang. Depending on what card you have achieved this with and on what turn, you will score the appropriate number of points. The play consists of 4 games, with the second and fourth games where the cards aren't shuffled, instead the players exchange their hands and roles. What I find unique about this game is that you have the perfect knowledge of what cards your opponent holds each time, similarly like in scientific war, and that you get a chance each time with the same hands swapped to try and play them better when possible. More information again here on Pagat:
https://www.pagat.com/misc/mate.html
German whist, the next game, is a relatively simple one. A standard 52 cards deck is used to play. Both players begin with 13 cards, while the remaining cards are placed on the table, all face down except the top card, which determines the trump suit. The play consists of two stages. In the first one, the won tricks do not count towards winning the game, and the purpose of it is only to improve your hand, as the winner of the trick always takes the face up card (the loser takes the next one which is face down, then another card on top is turned face up and so forth). After the stock on the table is exhausted, the second stage begins and the player who wins the majority of tricks wins the round. Obviously, the tactics resist in wisely winning or losing the tricks in the first stage and building a powerful hand for the second stage. Pretty easy as I said, might not be a bad idea for a quick game for two players.
https://www.pagat.com/whist/german_whist.html
I hope some of these games have captured your interest and it would be more than great to be able to play some of them on the playroom. Even if that's not possible, maybe this can serve as inspiration for those who like to play cards live and are looking for something new. If anyone knows of any other such trick card games, I'm very curious to hear about them.
Thanks for reading.
A-T

Hey Adventure, very great post and it really made me curious to try out some of the mentioned games. I definitely agree that we have too less trick taking games that you can play 1 V 1. Bouillabaisse is an example, although it is one of my favorite games I never want to play it 1V1 unless we are 4 or 5, with two players there is strategy, but that strategy can be applied over and over, there is a scheme that you follow, and if both of you do it perfectly, which is most likely to be the case if we have two experienced players, you will know at the beginning of the round whether it's worth to fight to the end of the round or immediately take that 200 points card.
Scopa is one of the games I've enjoyed the most, especially the duels with you :) when I've joined playroom 7 years ago. I got bored of that game after some time and feel that we really need some fresh games of that category.
I would also like to mention that there are also not many trick taking games that you can play in teams, I am a big fan of Spades, so I would really love to have something similar here. Since you made so nice post about 1V1 games, I will take my time and try to find out whether there are any fun team trick taking games, that are different than Belote and Yass.

Hello,

I thought I had more or less covered the most important kinds of trick tacking games, but yes, it's true that none of those currently available on the playroom can be played with two people.

I'll have a look at the propositions, and maybe I could implement one of them. As usual, however, I can't, and don't want to promise anything.

Thank you very much for these suggestions. For one time they are well presented and argumented.