As one of my latest character ideas is a rather sneaky card shark working in a gambling house in Connlaoth, it really surprised me that there wasn't a thread about the different sorts of gambling games one could play in the medieval time period, given the amount of heavy drinking and gambling addicted characters I seem to come across. So, here's some brief descriptions and rules for a couple of old card games that might be useful for spicing up your threads:
FaroFaro is a banking game originating in late 17th century France that was more popular than poker at one point. In this game, the players, called punters, are betting individually against the dealer, also called the bank, with bets being made with clay tokens that can be exchanged for actual money after the game. The game uses a standard fifty-two card deck, with an extra set of one suit lacquered to the table in the following formation:
Bets are placed on the card the punter thinks is going to win, or place their bet between two cards, saying that either of those cards is going to win before it loses, or at the corner of four cards to say that any of those four cards is going to win before it loses. If one places a copper piece on top of their bet, they are reversing their bet; the card(s) they bet on are going to lose before they win.
When the dealer begins flipping cards, he makes two piles: the one on his right loses, the one on his left wins. The first card flipped is called the
soda, and has no effect on the game whatsoever (similar to burning cards in several varieties of poker), leaving fifty one cards in play. The last card drawn is called the the
hoc.
All cards flipped over are recorded on an abacus-like device (called a case) that has thirteen slots label Ace through King, each with four beads. When a card is drawn, say for instance, a Jack, the case keeper (the guy holding the case) moves one bead over in the slot with the Jack on it. Now... Why keep track of which cards are still in the deck? Because, when the deck is down to three cards, the dealer "calls the turn", which is a special bet where the players can bet on what order the last three cards are going to be drawn in. This is important because it has a four to one payout for the players if they win.
And there you have it: The basics of Faro.
CachoStraight from 17th century Spain, this card game is similar to poker in that the object is to have the highest hand, but has several major differences:
- Unlike poker, Cacho is played only with the cards Ace through Six, with Ace being the low card
- Hands in Cacho are played with three cards, not five
- Each card in a hand, excepting the first card, is dealt after a round of betting
A single card is dealt to each player, followed by a round of betting. If all players fold on the first betting round, then the hand is void and the deck is reshuffled. Once the players bet (regular poker betting rules can be applied here, since I'm not going to get into the details of Cacho betting), the second card is dealt, and anyone who has not folded already may place their bets, or fold. Once the third card is dealt, a final betting round ensues, followed by the showdown; the highest hand wins the pot.
Hands, in order of rank:
Three sixes:
The highest combination in the game.
Three-card flush (Cacho):
Three cards of the same suit. In case two players show a three card flush, they must add up their face values, plus a premium of 20. The result is the point-value of the three-card flush, that can go from as low as 26=1+2+3+20 to as high as 35=4+5+6+20.
Two-card flush:
Two cards of the same suit. The point value is found by adding these two cards, plus a premium of 20, and can go from 23 to 31.
High card:
If no-one has any better combination, the highest card wins.
And there you have the basics of Cacho.
These are just a couple of old card games, and there are many, many more out there that originate from the Middle Ages. And card games weren't the only thing to gamble on; dice games were also very popular (a dice game called Hazard was once very popular in England, but I'm not going to go into its complicated rule system). Anyway, this is just a thread to get y'all thinking about ways to flesh out your RP experience.
As always, happy writing,
Klez
