Cego

Cego is a card game of the Tarok family played in south west Germany, developed in the early nineteenth century and long regarded as the national card game of Baden and Hohenzollern. It is played with a special 54-card Cego pack of 22 permanent trumps, called Trocke, and eight cards in each of four suits, and it is the only region of Germany where genuine tarot-style cards are still in general use. What sets it apart from other Tarok games is an extra hand, the Cego, also called the Tapp or Blinde, dealt to the centre of the table. Many of the bids involve playing with that hand, keeping only one or two of the cards originally dealt and discarding the rest, an idea that comes from a version of L'Hombre. Four or three players take part, play runs anticlockwise, and local variations abound from village to village.