Calling the Twenty (Zwanzigerrufen) · reading each card’s value in one step
The Calling the Twenty rules count Card Points in two steps. First you count your captured cards: every card counts 1 Card Point, except the empty four, which count nothing. That is your base count. Then you add the pips printed on the cards, and that is your pip count. Together the two counts are your Card Points.
Traditional groups get there in one step. They read each card’s whole value at once and add the values up. This page shows that count, works it through on the main rules’ own example pile, and shows why it always lands on exactly the same number as the two steps.
The card values
In the traditional count every card has one value, and you add those values as you go through your pile.
| Card | Traditional value | The main rules’ two steps |
|---|---|---|
| Kings | 5 | 1 + 4 pips |
| Skus, Moon (XXI), Pagat (I) | 5 | 1 + 4 pips |
| Queens | 4 | 1 + 3 pips |
| Cavaliers | 3 | 1 + 2 pips |
| Jacks | 2 | 1 + 1 pip |
| Every other Tarok, the XX down to the IV | 1 | 1 + no pips |
The empty four, 1 , 1 , 10 , 10 |
0 | not counted |
The deck still holds 88 Card Points. The four Kings bring 20, the three Trull cards 15, the Queens 16, the Cavaliers 12, the Jacks 8, the seventeen other Taroks 17, and the empty four nothing.
Why the two counts always agree
Read the right-hand column of the table again. Every card except the empty four counts 1 Card Point in the main rules’ first step and adds its pips in the second, and the traditional value of each card is exactly that sum. The empty four count nothing either way. So the two methods agree card by card, which means they agree on every pile, every hand and every evening.
Which one you use is a matter of habit. The two steps are two quick sweeps through the pile, one for the cards and one for the pips. The traditional count is one slower sweep with bigger numbers. Groups that grew up with the traditional values often find it the more natural of the two, and a mixed group can let each side count its own way, because the verdict cannot differ.
A fully worked example
Take the pile the main rules count in “Scoring the Hand”. The calling side has captured 24 cards: K, K, Q, C, J, J, the Moon (XXI), the Pagat (I), the 10, and fifteen Taroks without pips. Here they are taken as the XX down to the VI, but any fifteen of them would count the same.
| Cards | How many | Traditional value each | Card Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| K, K |
2 | 5 | 10 |
| Moon (XXI), Pagat (I) | 2 | 5 | 10 |
| Q |
1 | 4 | 4 |
| C |
1 | 3 | 3 |
| J, J |
2 | 2 | 4 |
| fifteen Taroks, the XX down to the VI | 15 | 1 | 15 |
| 10, one of the empty four |
1 | 0 | 0 |
| Total | 24 | 46 |
The traditional count gives 46 Card Points. The main rules’ two steps give the same: 23 cards count once the 10 is set aside, the pips add another 23, and 23 and 23 make 46 of 88.
Count the other side to check your work. The two Defenders hold the remaining 16 cards: the K and the K, three Queens, three Cavaliers, the J and the J, the Skus, the V and the IV, and three of the empty four. Read in one step, that is 10 for the Kings, 12 for the Queens, 9 for the Cavaliers, 4 for the Jacks, 5 for the Skus, 2 for the two Taroks and nothing for the empty cards: 42 Card Points. In two steps it is 13 counted cards and 29 pips, which is 42 again. And 46 and 42 make 88.
In the Call the calling side needs more than 44 of the 88 Card Points, and at 44 to 44 it loses. With 46 Card Points the Forehand and the Partner have won, whichever way the players counted.
Counting in threes is a different habit
You may meet players who stack their captured cards in groups of three. That habit belongs to games such as Calling the King, Strawman and Slovenian Tarok, whose rules divide the card count by three before the pips are added, and players in the old days did the same work by counting in groups. Calling the Twenty does not divide: its 40 cards are read singly, so groups of three have no place in this game’s count.
Back to the rules: the Calling the Twenty rules, “Scoring the Hand”, for the two steps and the worked pile, and the Expansions entry “The traditional count”.
Sources
- pagat.com, Counting card points in Tarot games: nominal values, and the note that in Zwanzigerrufen the cards are counted singly and the small suit cards are worth nothing. pagat.com
- German Wikipedia, Zwanzigerrufen: no dividing into thirds in this game, and the deck total of 88. de.wikipedia.org