This Should Do The Trick! Trivia Quiz

Answer: Spades

Spades is a trick-taking card game in the Whist family of games, much like Bridge and Oh Heck. In Spades, however, spades is always the trump suit instead of trump being assigned by a player each round. Spades is generally played to 500 points and is now one of the most popular card games around.

Answer: Bridge

Bridge is also called Contract Bridge and is a classic trick-taking game. Tournaments are common because of the in-depth strategy involved in the auction system and the various "signals" used by experienced players.

Answer: Rook

Rook began as a trick-taking game that avoided using standard playing cards because of their association with gambling and sin. As a result, Rook is often called "Christian cards" or "missionary poker." Rook is different from other trick-taking games in that only certain cards are "counters" and score points while others score nothing.

Answer: Euchre

Euchre only utilizes the 9, 10, J, Q, K and A of each suit. Both teams compete to make it to 10 points to win the game. Whatever suit is chosen as trump, the Jack of that suit becomes the "right bower," the highest trump of the hand. The other Jack of the same color becomes the "left bower," which is the second-highest trump of the hand. One unique aspect is that the score is often kept using the 4 and 6 cards, showing a single suit symbol for each point scored.

Answer: Pinochle

Pinochle utilizes the same cards that Euchre does, but doubles them, thus requiring two decks of cards. As a result, specialized Pinochle decks are marketed in stores. This game puts a unique twist on trick-taking by awarding points to players who make specific arrangements of cards called "melds," similar to games like Rummy. Pinochle evolved from an earlier French game called Bezique.

Answer: Hearts

Hearts is a hugely popular non-partnership trick-taking game that lends itself extremely well to computerized play due to the solo nature of it and the ease of computer scoring and dealing. The game is famously included in every version of Microsoft Windows since version 3.1.

In Hearts, all players want to AVOID taking any heart suited cards because they score points. The Queen of Spades is a unique card that scores a whopping 13 points. First player to 100 points ends the game and lowest score wins!

Answer: 500

The game 500 is a trick-taking card game that is largely an extension of Euchre and involves several special bids unique to the game. The first team to achieve 500 points wins the game, but you can also lose the game going "out backwards" by scoring a cumulative -500 points. Around the 1920s, the game was largely displaced by Contract Bridge in the US.

Answer: Skat

Although official rules are fixed and unique, Skat is commonly played with several unofficial variations of card play and scoring. Besides suit-as-trump declarations, options for players include the "grand game" (similar to no trump in bridge) and the "null game" (a misere game).

Answer: Wizard

Wizard is similar to a card game called Oh Heck in that there is more emphasis on obtaining exactly the number of tricks that you bid. In Wizard, you get 20 bonus points for exactly guessing your trick count, but you lose 10 points for every bid you are over or under.

Answer: Whist

Although Whist was a hugely popular trick-taking game and led to many modern classics, it was not the first game to utilize "trumps" or "tricks." Ruff and Honours was an earlier game 16th century game that used these ideas, but was completely replaced by Whist when it was invented.