Hungarian Tarokk (Paskievics tarokk) · the coded bids, and how to answer them
The Hungarian Tarokk rules teach the bidding as a plain ladder: Three, Two, One and Solo, an honour needed to bid at all, and a stand for a player who has already bid. Its sidebar “The invitation system” warns you that a traditional group sounds different, because certain otherwise pointless bids are formal messages, and its Expansions entry “Invitation bids” gives the rules in short. This page is the full version. It covers which bids invite, what they promise, how an invitation is accepted, what a pass in the right place says, how strong a hand has to be, and where the circles disagree.
The Hungarian word is invit, an invitation. pagat.com calls the same bids “cue bids”, borrowing the term from Bridge to spare beginners the confusion; the two names describe one thing.
What an invitation is for
In Hungarian Tarokk the Declarer normally calls the XX, and its holder becomes the secret Partner. Two players who each hold a high honour may want each other as partners even when neither has the XX. An invitation lets one of them say, by the size of a bid, which Tarok they hold. If another player then becomes the Declarer, that player must call the card the inviter showed instead of the XX, and the inviter becomes the Partner.
Invitations belong to the traditional rules. You may invite only with the shown card in your hand, and you may not discard it afterwards. Holding the card never obliges you to invite.
Which bids invite
Before you bid, find the lowest bid open to you. It is the next step on the ladder Three, Two, One, Solo, or a stand if you have already bid and may stand. Any bid above it is a jump, and a jump is an invitation.
| Your bid | The card it shows |
|---|---|
| One step above your lowest bid | XIX |
| Two steps above your lowest bid | XVIII |
At the start of the bidding the lowest bid is Three. An opening Two therefore shows the XIX, and an opening One shows the XVIII. For a player who has already bid and may stand, the stand is the lowest bid, so a bid one step above the current bid already shows the XIX.
- Only the first jump of a hand is an invitation. Every later jump, by any player, is an ordinary bid.
- When the first three players have passed, the fourth player cannot invite, because no other player is left to take the contract and call the card.
- The XVII has no jump of its own. It would need a jump of three steps, which only an opening Solo could be, and then nobody could bid higher and call the card.
- A player whose only honour is the Pagat may still invite. That player must announce Pagat Ultimo at their first turn in the round of announcements.
Which answers stand
Accepting an invitation means becoming the Declarer, because only the Declarer calls. So you accept by outbidding everyone else, and the gentle way to do that is to stand on the invitation, if you have already bid in this hand and may stand. If you will be leading to the first trick, or otherwise playing right after the inviter, it is usually better to bid Solo than to stand, because of the way the talon is then shared. If a third player interferes with a Solo bid of their own, the invitation is not dead: stand on the Solo, and the partnership still happens.
The inviter is allowed to change their mind. If another player bids higher, the inviter may stand on that bid and become the Declarer instead of the Partner. Remember the main rules’ rule that a bid can be stood on only once: an acceptance made by standing cannot itself be stood on.
What a pass means: the yield
The most elegant call in Hungarian Tarokk is a pass.
It works in one situation only. One player has bid Three, another player has bid Two, and both remaining players have passed. If the player who opened with Three now passes, that pass is a message: it promises the XX together with the Skus or the XXI. The Two becomes the contract, and its bidder must call the XX. Without those cards you may not pass there; stand on the Two instead. Hungarian players call it engedett játék.
Notice what this does to the player who bid Three. Once the bidding has run Three, then Two, every remaining option speaks. Bidding One invites the XIX, bidding Solo invites the XVIII, and passing yields. The only way to say nothing at all is to stand.
How strong a hand it takes
To invite, you want the promised card, a high honour, and a real hand behind them: about six Taroks, with high ones beside the honour, and a suit headed by a King with a guard rather than a bare King. Seven Taroks let you relax the rest a little, eight or nine rather more. Inviting on the Pagat with no high honour asks for eight and preferably nine good Taroks.
To yield you need less, since a Partner with an honour is often worth more than a Partner with the XIX. Practitioner sources add a working floor of five Taroks; below that, pass at your first turn instead and let yourself be called.
One piece of table ethics, and it is the reason the system survives: do not invite with a weak XXI in order to dodge a catch. A player who does that wins one hand and loses the next ten, because their invitations stop being accepted.
Four bidding sequences
Kata is the Forehand, and Lili, Miki and Noémi bid after her, counter-clockwise.
Kata: One · Lili: Pass · Miki: Pass · Noémi: Solo · Kata: Pass. Kata’s lowest bid was Three, so her One, two steps higher, shows the XVIII. Noémi’s Solo is the next step. As Declarer at Solo she must call the XVIII, and Kata becomes her Partner.
Kata: Three · Lili: Two · Miki: Pass · Noémi: Pass · Kata: Solo · Lili: Hold. A stand on the Two was Kata’s lowest bid, so her Solo, two steps above it, shows the XVIII. Lili accepts by standing on the Solo and, as Declarer, must call Kata’s XVIII. A stand cannot be stood on, so the bidding ends.
Kata: Three · Lili: Pass · Miki: One · Noémi: Pass · Kata: Solo · Miki: Hold. Miki’s One is one step above Two and shows the XIX. Kata accepts with Solo, also a jump, but only the first jump counts. Miki then stands on the Solo and becomes the Declarer herself instead of Kata’s Partner.
Kata: Pass · Lili: Pass · Miki: Pass · Noémi: Three. After three passes Noémi cannot invite. Her bid is the trial Three, which needs no honour and so promises none.
What the code never bends
The honour requirement stands underneath everything. You may not bid, invite or yield without holding the Skus, the XXI or the Pagat, and the fourth player’s trial Three after three passes is the only exception in the game. So even the strangest coded bid tells you one hard fact: that player is holding a real honour.
There is also a happy consequence for the phase that follows. After a yield, or when the Declarer was obliged to call an invited card, the partnership is known from the bidding, so the round of announcements runs without the usual shadow play of attaching a kontra to prove which side you are on. The announcement etiquette page covers that phase.
Where the circles differ
Ask before the first deal which of these your group plays.
- The older rule read jumps differently. A jump that left only Solo as a higher bid showed the XVIII, even when it was a single jump. Most books still print that rule, but most players now follow this page: every single jump shows the XIX.
- Some groups never count the first bid of a hand as an invitation. There any honour is enough to open with Two or One, and a player who wants to invite opens Three and jumps at the next turn. The Expansions count an opening Two as a jump.
- Some groups count a jump as an invitation only when another player becomes the Declarer.
- Some groups accept an invitation only by a stand. Any other answer cancels it.
- A few groups play without invitations and without yields, as the base rules do.
- József Pais suggested a way to show the XVII. A player who jumps one step at the first turn shows the XIX. A player who makes the lowest bid at the first turn and jumps one step at the second turn shows the XVII.
The Hungarian Tarokk puzzles include bidding sequences to read before you try making invitations yourself.
Back to the rules: the Hungarian Tarokk rules, “The Bidding” (the honour requirement, the trial Three and standing), the sidebar “The invitation system”, and the Expansions entry “Invitation bids”.
Sources
- pagat.com, Hungarian Tarokk, “Conventions: cue bids and the yielded game”: the single and double jump showing the XIX and the XVIII, the obligation on the Declarer to call the shown card, the illegality of an invitation without the card, one invitation per auction, no invitation in fourth seat after three passes, the Pagat invitation with its compulsory Pagat Ultimo, and the yielded game promising the XX plus a high honour. pagat.com
- pagat.com, Hungarian Tarokk, “Variations in the bidding conventions”: the older interpretation of jumps, the circles that exempt the opening bid, those that require another player to become Declarer, those that require acceptance by holding, those that play no conventions, and Pais’s method for the XVII. pagat.com
- pagat.com, Hungarian Tarokk, “Advice on tactics: Bidding” and “Discarding”: strength requirements for an invitation (the indicated card, a high honour, ideally six tarokks; eight or nine when inviting on the Pagat), the lesser demands of yielding, and the ban on discarding the promised card. pagat.com