The six games in the Tarok Exploration Book share one 54-card deck and one engine, the trick (defined from zero here). Yet they feel wildly different at the table, and that difference is not mystique. It is arithmetic. Deck size, hand length and player count reshape the same cards into six distinct games, and because the claims are countable, we counted them: for every game, we simulated 300,000 random deals and measured what actually happens to the suits. This post shows the results.
The six games at a glance
| Game | Players | Cards | Tricks per hand | Contracts (basic) | Difficulty (of 3 dots) | Win at |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Calling the Twenty (Zwanzigerrufen) | 4 | 40 | 10 | 5 | ● | 45 of 88 CP |
| Calling the King (Königrufen) | 4 | 54 | 12 | 7 | ●●● | 36 of 70 CP |
| Slovenian Tarok | 3-4 (5 rotating) | 54 | 12 | 9 | ●●● | 36 of 70 CP |
| Hungarian Tarokk (Paskievics) | 4 | 42 | 9 | 4 + 6 announcements | ●●● | 48 of 94 CP |
| Strawman (Strohmandeln) | 2 | 54 | 27 (two-card tricks) | 2 | ● | 36 of 70 CP |
| Dappen | 6-8 | 54 | 7 (6p) / 6 (7p) | 2 + Challenge | ●● | hold table under 40 CP |
CP = Card Points, the values you capture in tricks; every game feeds them into a running session score. Three different totals in that column look like three counting systems to learn; they are not. All six games count the same way, off the same pips printed on the cards, and only the deck cull changes the total. Already the raw shapes disagree, though: the family’s hands range from 6 tricks to 27, its basic contract lists from 2 to 9.
The experiment: what happens to the color suits?
The four ordinary suits (we call them color suits, as opposed to the 22 permanent trump Taroks) are where classic trick-taking lives: leading a suit, following suit, building long suits. So we asked the deck two questions, 300,000 deals per game. One: how often is at least one player void in a given color suit straight from the deal (holding none of it)? Two: when a color suit is led, how often can ALL other players follow suit, so the trick stays a pure color contest with no Tarok crashing in?
| Game | Trump share of deck | Avg. color cards per suit per hand | Someone void in a given suit | Color lead survives all followers |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Calling the King | 41% | 1.78 | 42% | 58% |
| Slovenian Tarok | 41% | 1.78 | 42% | 58% |
| Calling the Twenty | 50% | 1.25 | 73% | 27% |
| Hungarian Tarokk | 52% | 1.11 | 83% | 17% |
| Dappen (6 players) | 41% | 1.04 | 95% | 5% |
| Dappen (7 players) | 41% | 0.89 | 99% | 1% |
What the numbers mean at the table
Calling the King and Slovenian Tarok are the classicists. Eight-card color suits and twelve-card hands keep colors alive: a color lead survives intact in more than half of all tricks. Suits develop, voids arrive late, long plans exist. If you love the patient side of trick-taking, these two games host it, and their head-to-head is about scoring philosophy, not deck physics, because their deck physics are identical.
Calling the Twenty is a controlled storm. Cull the deck to 40 and half of it is trumps. Somebody is void in your suit almost three deals in four, so color leads get trumped early and the game becomes a fast contest of trump timing. This is by design: shorter hands and quicker collisions are what make it the family’s entry game.
Hungarian Tarokk is the storm with the roof off. A 52 percent trump share and five-card suits leave a color lead surviving barely one trick in six. Almost everything is decided by the Taroks, which is exactly why Hungary pours its drama into announcements and doublings instead of suit play: the deck settled the suits already.
Dappen abolishes the color game entirely. Spread 54 cards across six or seven small hands and a color lead almost never gets home; at seven players the pure color trick is a once-an-evening event. Every trick is about trumps, which is why Dappen’s bidding runs on trump-strength duties and why it works at head counts where classic games dissolve.
Strawman sits outside the table: with two players and 27 two-card tricks, its drama is not statistical but informational, half the deck passing face up through the open piles. The numbers that matter there are 15 hand cards, 12 pile cards each, and a race to 11.
The takeaway
None of these numbers makes one game better. They make the games DIFFERENT in a way you can now pick deliberately: suit-play classicist or trump tactician, long hands or short, the full comparison series matches the number profile to your table. And the same measuring mindset shaped our deck itself, down to counting how often players lean forward to read cards (the whole argument is here).
Quick answers
Which tarock game has the most trumps? By deck share, Hungarian Tarokk at 52 percent, just ahead of Calling the Twenty at 50; the other games play the full deck’s 41 percent.
Why do tarock games feel so different with the same deck? Deck culls and player counts change suit lengths: a color lead survives 58 percent of tricks in Calling the King but only 5 percent at a six-player Dappen table.
All six games are taught from zero in the Tarok Exploration Book, played with one deck.