Card Games: Reverse Games

These are point trick games in which the aim is to avoid taking card points. Some of these are the reverse of existing positive point trick games, for example:

• Ramsch is the reverse of Skat; Kalter Schlag and Laus are relatives of Ramsch.
• Coteccio is the reverse of Trappola Ciapanò - is the reverse of Tressette

There are also reverse games which seem to be purpose built, having no known positive counterpart.

• Reversis - an ancestor of this group, highly fashionable in the 17th century but now almost forgotten.
• Hearts - currently the most popular game of this type, in which penalty cards are the hearts and the spade queen, which gives its name to variations such as Black maria.
• Gong Zhu (Drive Out the Pig) - a more complex version of Hearts, played in China.
• Polignac & Knaves - games in which the jacks (knaves) are the penalty cards.
• Ugly - an Australian variation of Knaves in which the diamond seven doubles penalties but can be cancelled by the club seven.
• Golden Ten - a Hearts variation using Rook cards.
• Losing Lodam - another reverse game from the 16th and 17th centuries, now obsolete, in which the high cards of all suits were penalty cards.

There are also several compendium games which consist of a series of deals played under various rules, many of which are reverse games with penalty points for taking particular cards or tricks. King, Barbu and Kierki are typical examples.