Cucumber (card game)

Cucumber, known in its home region as Agurk in Danish or Gurka in Swedish, is a north European trick-taking card game of Swedish origin, played by two or more players with the aim of avoiding taking the game's final trick. Card game researcher David Parlett has described Cucumber as a delightful Baltic gambling game, reflecting its light, quick-playing character and its popularity as a casual, sociable card game around the Baltic region. According to researcher John McLeod, Cucumber likely developed in the 1940s as an adaptation of an older game called Krypkille, updated to use a standard fifty-two card deck instead of the traditional Kille card pack used in the earlier game. The game is known under a range of regional names reflecting its spread across northern Europe, including Agurk in Denmark, Gurka in Norway and Sweden, Ogorek in Poland, Kurkku and Matapesa in Finland, and Gurka in Iceland, and it has also inspired at least one modern proprietary variant, the 2013 board game Five Cucumbers designed by Friedemann Friese.