Triomphe (French for triumph), once known as French Ruff, is a card game dating from the late 15th century. It most likely originated in France or Spain (as triunfo) and later spread to the rest of Europe. When the game arrived in Italy, it shared a similar name with the pre-existing game and deck known as '' trionfi''; probably resulting in the latter becoming renamed as ''Tarocchi'' (

tarot The tarot (, first known as '' trionfi'' and later as ''tarocchi'' or ''tarocks'') is a pack of playing cards, used from at least the mid-15th century in various parts of Europe to play card games such as Tarocchini. From their Italian roots ...

). While trionfi has a fifth suit that acts as permanent

trump Trump most commonly refers to: * Donald Trump (born 1946), 45th president of the United States (2017–2021) * Trump (card games), any playing card given an ad-hoc high rank Trump may also refer to: Businesses and organizations * Donald J. T ...

s, triomphe randomly selects one of the existing four suits as trumps. Another common feature of this game is the robbing of the stock. Triomphe became so popular that during the 16th century the earlier game of trionfi was gradually renamed tarocchi, tarot, or tarock. This game is the origin of the English word "trump" and is the ancestor of many

trick-taking game A trick-taking game is a card or tile-based game in which play of a '' hand'' centers on a series of finite rounds or units of play, called ''tricks'', which are each evaluated to determine a winner or ''taker'' of that trick. The object of such ...

s like

Euchre Euchre or eucre () is a trick-taking card game commonly played in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Great Britain, and the United States. It is played with a deck of 24, 28, or 32 standard playing cards. Normally there are four players, two o ...

(via

Écarté Écarté is an old French casino game for two players that is still played today. It is a trick-taking game, similar to whist, but with a special and eponymous discarding phase; the word ''écarté'' meaning "discarded". Écarté was popular in the ...

) and

Whist Whist is a classic English trick-taking card game which was widely played in the 18th and 19th centuries. Although the rules are simple, there is scope for strategic play. History Whist is a descendant of the 16th-century game of ''trump'' ...

(via

Ruff and Honours Ruff and Honours, Ruffe and Trump or Slamm was an English trick-taking card game that was popular in the 16th and 17th centuries; it was superseded in the 18th century by Whist. History Ruff and Honours is covered in Charles Cotton's ''The Comple ...

Spanish rules

The earliest surviving description was written by

Juan Luis Vives Juan Luis Vives March ( la, Joannes Lodovicus Vives, lit=Juan Luis Vives; ca, Joan Lluís Vives i March; nl, Jan Ludovicus Vives; 6 March 6 May 1540) was a Spanish ( Valencian) scholar and Renaissance humanist wh ...

in his ''Exercitatio linguae latinae'' around 1538 in

Basel , french: link=no, Bâlois(e), it, Basilese , neighboring_municipalities= Allschwil (BL), Hégenheim (FR-68), Binningen (BL), Birsfelden (BL), Bottmingen (BL), Huningue (FR-68), Münchenstein (BL), Muttenz (BL), Reinach (BL), Riehen (BS ...

. As he left Spain in 1509 never to return, the rules may date to his youth. However the game was already widespread by then. In 1541, Juan Maldonado (d. 1554) expanded on Vives's rules and later revised them in 1549. Both Vives and Maldonado described the rules in the form of dialogues between the players. It is an ancestor of

Ombre Ombre (, pronounced "omber") or l'Hombre is a fast-moving seventeenth-century trick-taking card game for three players and "the most successful card game ever invented." Its history began in Spain around the end of the 16th century as a four-pe ...

. The game is played by four players either individually or as partners. Maldonado uses a pack of 48

Spanish playing cards Spanish-suited playing cards or Spanish-suited cards have four suits, and a deck is usually made up of 40 or 48 cards (or even 50 by including two jokers). It is categorized as a Latin-suited deck and has strong similarities with the Italian- ...

but Vives uses a French deck by discarding the 10s. In the suit of clubs and swords, the ranking from highest to lowest is King, Knight, Jack, 9 ... Ace while in the suit of cups and coins it is King, Knight, Jack, Ace ... 9. In the trump suit, the Ace is promoted above the King. Partners are chosen by drawing cards from the deck with the two highest and the two lowest going together. They sit opposite of one another. Each player is dealt nine cards with the top card of the remaining stock of 12 flipped to reveal the trump suit. If the exposed card is an Ace or a

face card In a deck of playing cards, the term face card (US) or court card (British and US), and sometimes Royalty, is generally used to describe a card that depicts a person as opposed to the pip cards. They are also known as picture cards, or until the e ...

, the dealer has the right to exchange it for a card in his hand and get awarded three points. Players must

follow suit A trick-taking game is a card or tile-based game in which play of a '' hand'' centers on a series of finite rounds or units of play, called ''tricks'', which are each evaluated to determine a winner or ''taker'' of that trick. The object of such ...

, if devoid of that suit then they can play trumps or a card from another suit. Players with a weak hand can concede at any time and force a redeal but this is considered losing that particular hand. This game was used for gambling with players raising stakes before each trick. Each card is worth 1 point and points are counted after each trick, if a side neglects to add points then they are not counted. The side that wins a hand gets their points for that particular hand doubled. The first side to obtain 32 points wins.

English rules

Triumph

Hugh Latimer Hugh Latimer ( – 16 October 1555) was a Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, and Bishop of Worcester during the Reformation, and later Church of England chaplain to King Edward VI. In 1555 under the Catholic Queen Mary I he was burned at the ...

referred to the game of "Triumph" in 1529. The game is played in ''Gammer Gurton's Needle'', a comedy written around 1553 and

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

also mentioned the game in '' Antony and Cleopatra'' (''c.'' 1607). An incomplete description of "Trumpe" was provided by Jacques Bellot, a

Huguenot The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Be ...

from Caen residing in London, in his ''Familiar Dialogues'' (1586). Like Vives and Maldonado, the game is described in a dialogue. He describes a four-player partnership game where the one who cuts the highest card becomes the dealer. Twelve cards are commonly dealt counterclockwise to each player but his characters opt for a shorter game of nine cards. The dealer cuts the stock to reveal the trump suit. The player who holds the ace of trumps gets to rob the stock. Only trumps have value. Kings are high and worth 6, queens 4, jacks 2, and all other trumps 1. Players declare their trumps before trick-taking takes place. The game is abruptly interrupted, leaving the rest of the rules a mystery.

French Ruff

According to

David Parlett David Parlett (born 18 May 1939 in London) is a games scholar, historian, and translator from South London, who has studied both card games and board game Board games are tabletop games that typically use . These pieces are moved or placed ...

, the French game of Triomphe was known in England as Trump or French Ruff, the latter name to distinguish it from the ancestor of Whist and Bridge, English Ruff. The rules are only known from ''

The Compleat Gamester ''The Compleat Gamester'', first published in 1674, is one of the earliest known English-language games compendia. It was published anonymously, but later attributed to Charles Cotton (1630–1687). Further editions appeared in the period up to ...

'', first published in 1674, and reprinted more or less verbatim until 1754. A

French-suited pack French-suited playing cards or French-suited cards are cards that use the French suits of (clovers or clubs ), (tiles or diamonds ), (hearts ), and (pikes or spades ). Each suit contains three or four face/court cards. I ...

is used. They describe a game for two players or two teams of two or three players-a-side. Players cut for the deal and the player cutting the highest or lowest card, as pre-agreed, deals 5 cards each in packets of 2 and 3, before turning the next as trumps. Cards rank in

order: K Q Kn A 10 9 7 6 5 4 3 2. If the dealer turns up the Ace as trumps, the dealer may 'ruff' (exchange) it with another card and, if agreed, may also exchange with the next card of the stock if it is a trump, continuing to exchange as long as trumps appear and laying out the cards discarded. This 'robbery' was known as 'ruffing' hence the name of the game. Players must follow suit or trump and overtrump if unable to follow; only discarding if unable to follow suit or trump. Winning three or four tricks scores 1 point, winning five tricks scores 5. If players agree, there are penalty points for incorrect dealing (1) or revoking (1 or 2). A player playing out of turn incurs 1 penalty point unless it is the last trick. Gambiter assumes that winning 5 tricks is only worth 2 points and that game is 5. Play is anti-clockwise and eldest hand (right of the dealer) leads to the first trick. However, it is not clear from what source these clarifications or changes are drawn from.''Triomphe''
at gambiter.com. Retrieved 19 December 2020.

German rules

Incomplete rules from Strasbourg when it was still part of the

Holy Roman Empire The Holy Roman Empire was a political entity in Western, Central, and Southern Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its dissolution in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars. From the accession of Otto I in 962 ...

were recorded in both French and German (as Trümpfspiel) in 1637. Its rules are similar to the Dutch game of Troeven ("Trumps"). Aces are high and deuces are low. Each player takes a card from the deck; the lowest becomes the dealer. The dealer passes out nine cards to each player with the remaining cards forming the stock. The dealer exposes one card from the stock which will be the trump suit. If the dealer exposes an ace, he can exchange a worthless card for it. He can do the same with the remainder of the stock taking any trumps until he exposes a non-trump. The highest trump cards are fixed: the Ace of Hearts, the King of Diamonds, the Queen of Spades, and the Jack of Clubs. The object of each hand is to capture cards with the most points. Aces are worth four, kings three, queens two, and jacks one; in total there should be 40 points. If a player achieves a slam (winning all the tricks), he will get 80 points.

French rules

Though Triomphe can be traced back to the 1480s in France, the earliest surviving rules date to 1659. French Triomphe was played by four players divided into two partnerships with a 52-card deck. The order of the cards from highest to lowest is King, Queen, Jack, Ace, 10, 9 ... 2. Each player takes a card from the deck, the one with the highest card becomes the dealer and passes five cards face down to everyone. The remaining 32 cards form the stock. The dealer then turns up a card from the stock, the suit of that card will be the trump suit. An optional rule is that the player with the Ace of trumps gets to exchange the exposed card with one from his hand. He can do the same with the remainder of the stock taking any trumps until he exposes a non-trump. This is called robbing the stock. If the dealer exposes an ace as the trump, then he gets the right to rob the stock. The current dealer picks the next dealer out of the opposing team. The object of each hand is to win at least three tricks. Winning three or four tricks awards one point while winning all five tricks is worth two points. The first team to get five points wins the game. The eldest to the right of the dealer sets the first trick's suit with the winner of each trick leading to the next one. All players must follow suit if possible. Trumps must be used if void of the trick's suit. If the next player is also void, then she must over-trump if possible. If void in suit and trumps, then any card can be played but won't win. Since there are only 20 cards in play, any attempt to cheat by revoking is easily caught and the culprit loses the game. Since the 18th century, the game has been played with a 32-card

stripped deck A stripped deck or short deck (US), short pack or shortened pack (UK), is a set of playing cards reduced in size from a full pack or deck by the removal of a certain card or cards. The removed cards are usually pip cards, but can also be court c ...

.Règle du jeu de Triomphe
(French) at jeux-de-cartes. Retrieved 17 February 2017.

Footnotes

References

Bibliography

Cotton, Charles Charles Cotton (28 April 1630 – 16 February 1687) was an English poet and writer, best known for translating the work of Michel de Montaigne from the French, for his contributions to ''The Compleat Angler'', and for the influential ''The Comp ...

(1674
''The Compleat Gamester''
London: A.M. * Johnson, Charles (1754). ''The Compleat Gamester''. 8th edn. London: J. Hodges. *

Parlett, David David Parlett (born 18 May 1939 in London) is a games scholar, historian, and translator from South London, who has studied both card games and board games. He is the president of the British Skat Association. His published works include many po ...

(2008). ''The Penguin Book of Card Games'', Penguin, London.

External links

Ruff and Trump rules
from

Francis Willughby's Book of Games ''Francis Willughby's Book of Games'' is a book published in 2003 that printed for the first time a transcription of a seventeenth-century manuscript written by Francis Willughby that was held in the library of the University of Nottingham. The mo ...

(c. 1662-72) {{Historical card games 15th-century card games