Hungarian Tarokk is a four-player tarock where public announcements and Kontra doubling carry the evening; Strawman (Strohmandeln) is the family’s 2 player tarock duel across face-up piles. Both turn on whether you say what you are about to do: Hungary makes announcing the whole culture, Strawman makes it a private option worth double. Four players in the mood for theater choose Budapest; two quiet planners choose Strawman.
An odd couple, at first. But these two share a thread the rest of the family only borrows: the game changes depending on whether you speak. In Hungarian Tarokk, announcing is the whole culture. In Strawman, it is a knife you may choose to show. How loudly you like your promises made is what this comparison really measures.
By the numbers
One definition first: a trick is a single round where each player plays one card face up and the best card takes them all (new to trick-taking? start here). Hungary: exactly 4 players, 42 cards, 9 tricks per hand, 4 contracts, 6 kinds of mid-hand promises (“announcements”) with a Kontra ladder three doublings deep, all three difficulty dots, 48 of 94 Card Points to win (Card Points are what you capture in tricks). Strawman: exactly 2 players, all 54 cards in play, 15-card hands plus three four-card piles each, 27 two-card tricks per hand, 2 contracts, 3 bonuses, one difficulty dot, 36 of 70 to win, and a race to 11 Victory Points, the running match score that won hands feed. A Strawman hand runs three times the tricks of a Hungarian one, and the temperature runs the other way: Hungary’s deck is 52 percent Taroks (the permanent trump suit, the cards that beat every color card) with five-card color suits, so by our deal simulations a color lead survives all three opponents in barely one trick of six. Short, hot hands against a long, cool duel.
Hungarian Tarokk: promises as the main event
Hungarian Tarokk keeps its contract ladder deliberately tiny, four rungs, all calling the Tarok XX as secret partner, and lets announcements carry the evening. Committing your side to deliver the last trick with the Pagát, the lowest trump, or to capture the enemy’s XXI, their second-highest, is worth several basic contracts; sweeping every trick, more still. Each promise invites a Kontra, which invites a Rekontra, and the hand’s value climbs while the cards are still being played. Even four passes carry a price: the cards go in, and the next round of deals scores double. The table talks, needles, invites and bluffs, and has done so in Hungarian coffeehouses since the nineteenth century. It is the family’s most social sharp game, and it wants exactly four players in the mood for theater.
Strawman: promises as a private option
Strawman strips the audience away. Two players, large hands, and the Straw Men between you: face-up pile tops playable as if from your hand, refilled by a flip every time you spend one. The board is mostly open, the planning runs deep, and the bonuses come with a quiet dilemma. Score one silently and take its base value; announce it beforehand and double it, at the price of telling your one opponent exactly what to stop. That single decision, whisper or declare, carries a surprising share of Strawman’s psychology, and the stakes stay merciful: a bonus attempt that falls short simply scores nothing, where Hungary makes a failed announcement pay the enemy. The duel stays gentlemanly; the traditional race to 11 Victory Points keeps it brisk.
What else divides them
Chairs, strictly. Tarokk is four, no substitutes. Strawman is two, period. Groups in between should look elsewhere in the family (three to five: Slovenian Tarok, which seats a fifth as sitting dealer; six or more: Dappen).
Where difficulty lives. Tarokk’s machine truly is small, four contracts and one way to count, but its community of conventions, invitations and etiquette takes seasons to absorb. Strawman has no etiquette to learn at all; its difficulty is pure calculation, growing with your opponent.
Chaos budget. Tarokk embraces swing: doubled deals, towering announcements, fortunes reversing on one captured XXI. Strawman is the family’s lowest-variance game: open information, two minds, few excuses.
Counting matters in both, and differently. Hungary counts to 94 Card Points, the family’s biggest total, and our deck lets you count it straight off the table: every card’s value is printed on its sides as pips, no memorized chart, no dispute that pointing cannot settle. Strawman’s open board asks for constant reading instead, and there the direction arrows on the number pips do the quiet work, settling at a glance which way each suit ranks, including the red suits’ famous reversal.
Which one is for you?
Choose Hungarian Tarokk if you have four players who love risk with an audience: announcements, doubles, glorious collapses, and a game whose social layer is the deep end. It is table talk turned into a scoring system.
Choose Strawman if you have two players who love earned wins: visible information, long plans, and promises made mostly to yourself. It is the family’s game with the volume turned down and the focus turned up.
If your table looks different: if Tarokk’s announcement culture tempts you but four exact players is the obstacle, Calling the King offers announcements and bonuses at four with a far wider contract ladder; our Calling the King vs Hungarian Tarokk comparison weighs the two capitals. Complete beginners should start with Calling the Twenty either way: it is the family’s entry game, our deck arrives presorted to teach it, and it happens to use the same XX-call Hungary is built on. The rest of the series is at all fifteen comparisons.
Quick answers
What happens if all four players pass in Hungarian Tarokk? The cards are thrown in and the whole next round of deals scores double.
Do failed bonuses cost you in Strawman? No; a silent bonus attempt that falls short simply scores nothing, which keeps the duel merciful.
Both games, and four more, are taught from zero in the Tarok Exploration Book, played with one deck.