Drużbart
Drużbart or Druzbart is an extinct Polish card game of the Bruus family.[1] The game is descended from the oldest known card game in Europe, Karnöffel, a fact testified by its unusual card ranking and lack of a uniform trump suit.[2]
 The Drużbart | |
| Origin | Poland |
|---|---|
| Type | Plain-trick game |
| Family | Karnöffel group |
| Players | 4 |
| Cards | 32 or 36 |
| Deck | German pack |
| Play | Clockwise |
| Card rank (highest first) |    |
| Related games | |
| Bräus, Brus, Brusbart, Bruus | |
Drużbart is designed for four players and is played with 36 cards of a German pack, each of the four suits comprising the cards 7–10, Unter, Ober, King, and Ace.
Background
Drużbart is one of a family of games descended from Karnöffel, the oldest European card game with a continuous tradition of play to the present day.[3] These games are characterised by "the wildly disturbed ranking order in the chosen suit and particularly by the special role of the chosen Seven."[2] It is one of the Bruus family of games whose progenitor was the German game of Brusbart. Other members of the family include Russian Bruzbart or Dulya, Livonian Brusbart, Swedish Bräus, Danish and Estonian Brus, and Greenlandic Voormsi. More distant cousins include Faroese Stýrivolt and Schleswig Knüffeln.[1]
The game was widespread in Poland during the 18th century,[4] one account describing how ladies in an upper-class house played it as an after-dinner game along with Zwicken.[5] In the 19th century it is recorded as being played "by the lower classes or children"[6] and in 1840 as being "in vogue among the common people."[7] However, there are only two imperfect descriptions of its mode of play, dating to 1831 and 1888.[6][8]
Druzbart was the favourite game of Count Henryk Rzewuski,[8] the Polish journalist, novelist, and poet who was a past master of the Polish gawęda, a form of discursive fiction in which the narrator recounts incidents in a highly stylized personal language.[9][10][11] Adam Mickiewicz, the Polish poet and scholar,[12][13] was also a player and enjoyed Drużbart during his stay in St. Petersburg in 1828.[14]
Druzbart appears to be extinct, although it was included in a 2012 reprint of the 1930 card game compendium by Gracz.[15][16]
Cards
A German-suited, Polish-pattern pack was used comprising 32 or 36 cards. In the 1831 account the beaters[lower-alpha 1] rank as follows, from highest to lowest:[1]
Cards of the same value (e.g. the four Obers) ranked among one another in the suit order shown above: Acorns, Leaves, Hearts, Bells. The three highest cards are called matadors (matedorami),[6] and their names appear to derive from the German words Tolle ("the mad one"), Brusbart ("bushy beard"), and Starka ("the strong one").[lower-alpha 2] Sevens were unbeatable when led, and the remaining cards—the Eights, Kings, and Tens—were duds, only fit for discarding.
Rules
The following outline of the rules is based on Gołębiowski and Gracz.[6][8]
A 32- (Gracz) or 36-card (Gołębiowski), German-suited, Polish pattern pack was used.[lower-alpha 3]
The aim is to win the most tricks. Four players form two teams of two with partners sitting opposite one another and sharing a common trick pile. There are no trumps and, at each card rank (excepting duds), suits have the following order of precedence: Acorns, Leaves, Hearts, and Bells. The dealer deals 9 cards to each player, presumably clockwise and in packets of three, but the sources are silent on the exact procedure.[6][8]
Forehand leads with any card. Players need not follow suit, but must head the trick.[lower-alpha 4] Sevens are unbeatable if led, but otherwise cannot beat any other card. Eights, Tens, and Kings are of no value, with the exception of those that are matadors.[6][8]
The player who has played the highest card wins the trick and leads to the next. If four duds are played, the player who led the first dud wins the trick and leads to the next. Play ends once one of the two teams has taken five tricks.[6][8]
Scoring
Players chalk a number of lines on a slate. A line is erased for each point scored. Winning the deal scores 1 point, and there is a bonus point for winning the first five tricks.[lower-alpha 5] There are penalties for losing a matador, especially to your partner.[6][8]
The first team to erase all its lines scores as many game points as their opponents have lines left i.e. if team A erase all their lines and team B have 3 left, team A scores 3 game points. Gracz goes on to describe a rather complex and less-than-clear system of cartoonish symbols (called for example "spectacles" or "scissors") that are chalked to denote various penalties incurred.[6][8]
Clock Druzbart
Gołębiowski describes a three-hand game known as Clock Druzbart (Zégarek drużbart). Here, players play for themselves and lines are chalked up in the form of a tripod with one line erased for each trick taken. Otherwise the rules are the same as in the four-player game.[6]
Footnotes
- Beaters are cards that can win a trick if they outrank all the others in that trick, as opposed to duds, which have no ranking and can only win if led to a trick and the remaining cards are also duds.
- In comparison with other members of the family, there are only two matadors, since the
- Today, these can be substituted by any German-suited pack of the right number of cards.
- This is unlike other members of the Brusbart family.
- Gołębiowski has four tricks which is odd in view of the fact that he names nine cards, and therefore there are presumably nine tricks. Gracz, however, uses a 32-card pack, so conceivably taking the first four tricks could be viewed as a win earning double points.
References
- Smith 1997, pp. 45-51.
- McLeod 1996, pp. 54/55.
- Dummett 1981, p. 130.
- Doroszewski 1960, p. 396.
- Czajkowski 1843, p. 169.
- Gołębiowski 1831, pp. 45/46.
- Forster 1840, p. 216.
- Gracz 1888, pp. 31-33.
- Miłosz 1983, pp. 254–55..
- Heraty 1981, p. 501.
- Ward 1909, p. 658.
- Miłosz 1983, p. 228.
- "Pan Tadeusz Poem: Five things you need to know about this epic Polish masterpiece". Retrieved 2019-09-15.
- Giżycki & Wood 1972, p. 224.
- Gracz 1930, pp. 31-33.
- Gracz 2012, pp. 31-33.
Literature
- Doroszewski, Witold, ed. (1960), Slownik jçzyka polskiego, p. 396.
- Dummett, Michael (1978). Reviews of "Der Nidwaldener Kaiserjass Und Seine Geschichte" and "Der Kaiserjass, Wie Er Heute in Nidwalden Gespielt Wird" in The Playing Card, Vol. 9, No. 4, May 1981.
- Forster, Charles (1840). Pologne. Paris: Didot Frères.
- Giżycki Jerzy and Baruch Harold Wood (1972) History of Chess. Abbey Library.
- Gołębiowski,Łukasz (1831). Gry i zabawy różnych stanów w kraju całym, lub niektórych tylko prowincyach. Warsaw. pp. 45/46.
- Gracz, Stary (1888). Gry W Karty. Synow, Warsaw. pp. 31–33.
- Gracz, Wytrawny (1930). Gry w karty. Polskie i obce. Nowego Wydawnictwa, Warsaw, reprinted 2012.
- Heraty, J. (1981). New Catholic Encyclopedia, Volumes 1-19.
- McLeod, John (1996). "Styrivolt, Vorms and Cicera" in The Playing Card, Volume 25, No. 2.
- Miłosz, Czesław (1983). The History of Polish Literature, 2nd edn. Berkeley/LA/London: UCP.
- Parlett, David (2008). The Penguin Book of Card Games, Penguin, London. ISBN 978-0-141-03787-5
- Smith, Anthony (1997). "Voormsi: A Greenlandic Descendant of Karnöffel" in The Playing-Card with which is incorporated Playing-Card World; Journal of the International Playing-Card Society, Vol. 26, by Beal, ed. George, July/August 1997 - May/June 1998. Published by The International Playing-Card Society, ISSN 0305-2133.
- Ward, Sir Adolphus William, George Walter Prothero, and Stanley Leathes (1909). The Cambridge Modern History, Volume 11. Catholic University of America: University Press.
External links
- Gloger, Zygmunt (1901). "Drużbart" in Encyklopedja starapolska ilustrowana, Volume 2, Laskauer. Largely a copy of Gołębiowski's text.
