Card games in Hungary

Most games use the 32 card German suited pack with picture cards showing characters from the William Tell legend, and the aces depicting seasons of the year. A similar design is used in neighbouring countries, but in Hungary they are known as Magyar Kartya (Hungarian Cards). The suits are hearts (Piros), bells (Tök), acorns (Makk) and leaves (Zöld), and the cards in each suit are ace (Ász), king (Király), over (Felső), under (Alsó), 10, 9, 8, 7. Games with these cards include

• Ulti - the most popular card game in Hungary. It is related to the Czech game Mariáš
• Zsírozás (related to the Czech Sedma),
• Preferansz (related to Austrian Preference)
• Lórum - a compendium game similar to Barbu but with a fixed sequence of contracts
• Felsős - a jass game similar to Austrian Zensa
• Snapszli, also known as Snapszer - similar to Austrian Schnapsen)
• Alsós, also called Vannak, an elaborate game of the Jass family, which seems unfortunately to have died out.
• Ferbli, an elaborate gambling game in which the players bet on who has the best 4-card hand.

Tarokk is played in Hungary using a 42 card French suited pack consisting of

• 22 trumps: Skíz, XXI - I;
• king, queen rider, jack, ten of the black suits
• king, queen rider, jack, ace of the red suits

These packs are usually sold with 54 cards, each suit having three additional numeral cards, which are not used. The basic Hungarian Tarokk game is sometimes known as Paskievics or XXas-hívásos Tarokk (call the XX Tarokk). Some more elaborate versions have been devised, such as Illustrated Tarokk (sometimes known as Palatinusz Tarokk).

The World Casino Directory includes a listing of Casinos in Hungary.