Klaberjass

Klaberjass, also known as Bela, is a trick-taking, ace-ten card game for two players that uses a thirty-two card piquet pack and is especially associated with German and Jewish communities in Europe and, through emigration, North America. It traces back to the Low Countries, where a game called klaverjassen is recorded as early as 1730, with an early full description appearing in a Dutch book from 1821. Each player is dealt six cards at the start of a hand, and the jack and nine of the trump suit, known as the Jass and the Manille, are elevated above the other cards as the two highest-ranking and highest-scoring trumps, a hallmark of the ace-ten family of games. Players can also score extra points for holding the king and queen of trumps together, a combination called the marriage or bela. Hands are scored and accumulated until one player reaches a total of five hundred points or more, winning the game.