Calling the Twenty (Zwanzigerrufen) and Hungarian Tarokk (the Paskievics game) are both four-player tarock games that call the Tarok XX, the trump numbered 20, to find a secret partner. The Twenty is Austria’s entry game: 40 cards, 5 contracts, one difficulty dot. Hungarian Tarokk plays 42 cards over 9 tricks per hand (a trick: each player plays one card face up, and the best card takes them all; new to trick-taking? start here) and moves its drama into announcements, Kontra doubling, and table talk, earning all three difficulty dots.
Here is the curiosity: Austria’s entry game and Budapest’s coffeehouse institution build their partnerships around the very same card. Say “I call the Twenty” at either table and you have a secret partner. Everything that happens after that call could not be more different.
What the two games share
Both are four-player games. In both, the auction winner calls the XX, its holder becomes a hidden ally, and the partnership comes to light through play. Both count every captured card. And in both, the real flavor lives in the extras: bonuses in Austria, announcements in Hungary, ways to score that go beyond simply winning the hand.
By the numbers
The Twenty: 40 cards, 10 tricks per hand, 5 contracts, 3 bonuses, one difficulty dot, 45 of 88 Card Points to win (Card Points are what you capture in tricks). Hungarian Tarokk: 42 cards, only 9 tricks per hand, and the family’s smallest ladder (its menu of contracts) at 4 contracts. On top of that sit 6 announcement types with the Kontra doubling duel, all three difficulty dots, and 48 of 94 to win. Both are trump-heavy by design: the Twenty’s deck is 50 percent Taroks (the permanent trump suit, the cards that beat every color card), Hungary’s 52. Our deal simulations put Hungary even deeper in the storm: a color-suit lead survives all three opponents following in barely one trick of six, against one in four for the Twenty. Hungary is the shortest hand in the family carrying the tallest stakes.
Contracts vs announcements: where they split
What the contract means. In Calling the Twenty (Zwanzigerrufen), the contract is the game: claim it, deliver it, score it, deal again. Hungarian Tarokk runs the smallest contract ladder in the whole family, just four rungs, and the Hungarians will tell you with a straight face that this makes it a simple game. It does not. The contracts are merely the entry fee; the announcements tower over them. Declaring that your side will capture the last trick with the lowest trump, the Pagát, is worth several times a basic contract. Catching the enemy’s XXI, their second-highest trump, is worth more still. The hand’s value is negotiated, doubled, and re-doubled while it is being played.
The doubling culture. The Twenty keeps score gently. Hungarian Tarokk hands every player a megaphone: Kontra doubles an announcement, Rekontra doubles it back. And when all four players pass, Hungary throws the cards in with a grin: the same dealer deals again, and the whole next round of deals scores double. Nobody wants to be the fourth pass; that is the point. Confidence is a currency here, and bluffing with announcements you may not deliver is part of the art.
The talon. The Twenty plays the cards as dealt. In Hungarian Tarokk the whole table shares the talon, the dealt-aside reserve cards: everyone gets to improve their hand a little, then discard under strict laws. It softens the luck of the deal and hardens the blame for a bad result.
The etiquette. Hungarian Tarokk is a community as much as a game: invitations hidden inside bids, announcements made in a fixed order, even a mocking title, the Mayor, worn in shame by whoever last lost their XXI to the enemy’s top trump. Doctors, poets and chess players have ruined friendships over it since the nineteenth century. The Twenty has no such protocol. Its etiquette is: keep up.
Two practical notes from the deck in your hands. First, it arrives presorted for a guided first game of Calling the Twenty, which is the family’s gentlest door and, conveniently, teaches the exact call Hungary uses too. Second, Hungarian counting runs to 94 Card Points, the largest total in this book, and you count it straight off the cards: the point values are printed on their sides as pips, so even Hungary’s arithmetic becomes counting rather than memorizing.
Which one is for you?
Choose Calling the Twenty if you want your card evening light on ceremony and quick on its feet, or if anyone at the table is new to Tarok. It is the family’s entry game for a reason.
Choose Hungarian Tarokk if you love table talk with teeth: doubling duels, brave announcements, an evening where reading people outranks reading cards. If Poker’s psychology appeals to you but you want a richer engine underneath it, Budapest built your game.
Be warned in the friendliest way: Hungarian Tarokk is a deep pool. Learn the machine first, then the community. The book teaches the machine in one chapter; the community teaches itself, one lost announcement at a time.
If your table looks different: if you like Hungary’s announcements but want a wider choice of contracts to announce them in, Calling the King is the bridge between these two, with both a broad ladder and a bonus flock; read our Calling the King vs Hungarian Tarokk comparison. Three players tonight? Slovenian Tarok. Two? Strawman waits. The full series lives at all fifteen comparisons.
Quick answers
Is Hungarian Tarokk hard to learn? The rules engine is small at 4 contracts, but the announcement and Kontra culture takes seasons to absorb, which is why it carries all three difficulty dots.
What does calling the Twenty mean? The auction winner names the Tarok XX and its holder becomes their secret partner, revealed only through play.
Both games, and four more, are taught from zero in the Tarok Exploration Book, played with one deck.