Préférence, frequently spelt Preference, is a Central and Eastern European 10-card plain-trick game with bidding, played by three players with a 32-card Piquet deck, and probably originating in early 19th century Austria, becoming the second most popular game in Vienna by 1980. It also took off in Russia where it was played by the higher echelons of society, the regional variant known as Preferans being still very popular in that country, while other variants are played from Lithuania to Greece...
History In spite of the game's French name and a number of French terms, it has always been mostly unknown in France.. A game of this name was already mentioned as popular in Vienna in 1803,. but Depaulis has found references as early as 1801 in Bohemia and notes that it may even have been known in Russia before 1800. Nevertheless, the earliest known description is in an 1829 Austrian game anthology,.... Préférence quickly became popular in Imperial Russia as well. Via Yeralash, the suit order of Russian Preferans became the suit order of Bridge whist, before it was changed for a new order, with Spades high like in Contract Bridge. As of 1846, a German encyclopedia listed the games played by the Christian population of the Ottoman Empire (Greeks, Macedonians, Vlachs and Serbs, Slavs) as dice games, chess, backgammon, tarot games, Préférence and gambling card games..
Préférence appears to be derived from Ombre and Boston, although as a three-player game with 10-card hands and a 2-card talon it also has superficial similarities with other Central European games such as Skat and Mariáš. It has the basic structure of Ombre but many similarities with the simpler French four-player game Boston de Fontainebleau, which appears to be the source of the French terminology. McLeod and Geiser group Préférence with the Rams family of card games whose distinctive feature is that players may choose to opt out of a particular deal if they believe their cards are not sufficiently good to win a trick or the minimum specified number of tricks.Card Games: Rams Group at www.pagat.com. Retrieved 27 October 2018.
Préférence is named after the ranking of preferred suits for bidding purposes, an innovative feature at the time of its introduction. Once a mode of play has been declared, any player may drop out and only the remaining players play, if two parties are still represented. This feature is reminiscent of gambling games such as Tippen or Loo. In Austria, the game is also known as Pudeln, Polackeln or Polacheln, the last two names suggesting a connexion with Poland, Polacken being Austro-Bavarian for "Poles" and similar to the Italian word, polacco. Geiser further states that, in Bavaria, the game is known as Wallachen or Walachen which points to a link with Wallachia in modern-day Romania, however a closer relative appears to be the Bavarian game of Bolachen, whose name is phonetically close to the Austro-Bavarian, Polacheln. Preferl is a light-hearted Viennese nickname for the game.
Austrian Préférence (1829) The following is a summary of the earliest known (1829) rules for Préference: Neuestes allgemeines Spielbuch (1829), pp. 141–149.
Préference is a three-player game. If four play, the dealer, known as King, sits out the hand. In both cases, the role of dealer rotates to the left with each hand. A 32-card Piquet or German-suited pack is used. Cards rank in natural order, aces high: AKQJ10987 or AKOU10987.
Deal The dealer shuffles the pack, has the player to the right cut and then deals clockwise, beginning with forehand to the left. The cards are dealt in three packets: first 3, then 4, then 3 more. After the first packet of 3 cards has been dealt, the dealer deals 2 cards to the table, face down, as the talon.
Auction There is then an auction in which players may bid to become the declarer who has the privilege of exchanging with the talon, announcing the trump suit and leading to the first trick, committing to take at least 6 tricks. Suits rank in ascending order as follows: Clubs < Spades < Diamonds < Hearts. If German-suited cards are used the order is: Acorns < Leaves < Bells < Hearts.
Forehand opens the bidding and must either "pass" (weiter) or bid by saying "I have one" (ich habe eine). If forehand passes, the next player has the same options. Once a player bids, a later player who also wants to bid, asks "Which suit?" (Wie heißt sie?) and whoever has the lower-ranking suit must pass. An earlier bidder may hold a later bid by saying "mine" (selbst) and play in the higher-ranking suit. If the first player to bid wants to play in Hearts, they simply announce "Préférence", which cannot be overcalled. The winning bidder becomes the declarer and may pick up the talon and lay aside any two cards. Alternatively the declarer may opt to play from the hand without the aid of the talon.
Once the declarer has announced trumps, the others in order must decide whether to play (helfen) or drop out (passen) of the current hand. The latter is indicated by dropping one’s cards or saying "pass". A player who plays on with the declarer must take at least 2 tricks to share the winnings. If all pass first time around, forehand has a second opportunity to play and pick up the talon. Otherwise forehand says "pass again" (abermals weiter), whereupon the dealer must pick up the talon and either play or pass and pay a penalty called a bête (see below).
Play Unusually, the declarer leads to the first trick. Players must follow suit if able; otherwise must trump. Only if unable to follow or trump may they discard any other card. There is no requirement to head the trick. The highest trump wins the trick or the highest card of the led suit if no trumps were played. The trick winner leads to the next trick.
Settling The game described was played for money, players agreeing the amounts beforehand. In the example given, three players each anted 4 Gulden to a pot from which winnings were drawn. Each trick won was worth 1 kreuzer (kr) in Clubs, 2 in Spades, 3 in Diamonds and 4 in Préference. Settlement was as follows:
If, after the auction, both defenders dropped out, the declarer won 10, 20, 30 or 40 kr depending on the suit bid.
If the dealer was forced to pick up the talon after everyone had passed, the dealer paid a bête of 10 kr to the pot.
If the declarer took at least 6 tricks, he won 10, 20, 30 or 40 kr from the pot depending on the suit played. From these winnings, the declarer paid each successful defender their share. Example, Anton announces Diamonds. He takes 6 tricks, Brigitte 2 and Charlotte 2. Anton draws 30 kr from the pot and pays Brigitte and Charlotte 6 each.
A defender who failed to take 2 tricks paid the others directly for the tricks they took and the pot remained untouched. Example: Diamonds being trumps, if Anne had taken 7 tricks, Berti 2 and Carl 1, Carl would pay from his own pocket 21 kr to Anne and 6 to Berti.
A declarer who failed to take 6 tricks paid to the pot what would have been won in a successful game and paid the others for their tricks. Example: Anton names Diamonds as trumps and takes 5 tricks, Brigitte 3 and Charlotte 2. Anton pays 30 kr to the pot, 9 to Brigitte and 6 to Charlotte.
If a declarer and a defender failed, each placed a bête in the pot and the declarer paid the others for their tricks. Example: Anne announces a Préférence and takes 5 tricks, Berti 4 and Carl 1. Anne and Carl pay 40 kr to the pot and Anne pays Berti 16 kr for his 4 tricks and Carl 4 for his single trick.
A player who drops out neither pays nor receives payment.
The rules allow a player to play ‘from the hand’ (i.e. without the talon) but do not say how this affects the bid ranking or the game value.
In another early version of the scoring, before every deal, the dealer paid 10 units into the pot. All payments were multiplied by one tenth of the value of the pot at the start of the hand. This could make the game very expensive, especially when played with an unlimited pot as in unlimited gambling games such as Tippen or Loo.
Austrian Préférence (modern) The rules for modern Austrian Préférence are as follows:
Cards
+ Bids and contracts Bid Name Tricks Trumps(French suits) Trumps(German suits) 1 clubs ≥6 ♣ 2 spades ≥6 ♠ 3 diamonds ≥6 ♦ 4 hearts ≥6 ♥ While special 32-card, French-suited Préférence packs of the Viennese pattern are available in Austria, in regions such as Salzburg and its surrounding area, Double German cards are preferred.
Deal and auction The cards are dealt as in the original rules using the scheme 3–talon–4–3. Players bid for the privilege of becoming the soloist and declaring the trump suit and mode of play. Each bid has a corresponding hand version (i.e. without taking up the talon) that ranks higher than all non-hand bids. A hand bid in hearts is bid as preference; any other hand bid is bid as "hand", with further clarification as necessary. As before, if two players want to play the same suit, positional priority applies. If the others both pass, the dealer becomes declarer.
Except in a hand contract, the declarer takes the talon and discards two cards face down. Declarer then announces trump, whose value must be at least that of the bid. As before, declarer must win 6 tricks, and each defender 2. Before the hand is played, the soloist or any defender may drop out. If one defender drops out, only one defender and the soloist play, so each trick consists of two cards. If both defenders drop out, or the soloist drops out, there is no play and the game is scored immediately.
Play Rules of play are as in the 1829 rules above.
Stakes and winnings Each player antes a certain amount to the pot before the first deal, and this is repeated whenever the pot is empty later on and players wish to continue.
After the hand has been played, declarer receives 10 units from the pot or pays 20 units into the pot, depending on whether declarer won 6 tricks or not. A defender who did not win two tricks pays 10 units into the pot. In any case, each defender who won at least two tricks receives 1 unit directly from the dealer. A special case is when declarer gave up before the hand was played. In that case declarer pays 3 units to each defender, or 5 units to the remaining defender if the other also dropped out.
Illustrated Préférence bid name tricks trumps 5 misère 0 none 6 slam 10 none 7 open misère 0 none 8 open slam 10 none In Illustrated Préférence, also an Austrian game, there are four additional no trumps contracts which again exist in an ordinary version and a hand version each. As a special exception, the non-hand versions of open bids rank higher than non-open hand bids.
In these contracts there are no specific targets for the defenders other than preventing declarer from making it, and no payments for tricks won by defenders. Defenders may not drop out of card-play individually.
If declarer wins a trick in a misère contract, or loses a trick in a slam contract, card-play is stopped immediately. In the open contracts, declarer plays with open cards and defenders may discuss how to proceed.
Scoring for the additional non-suit contracts is fundamentally different from that for suit contracts, as the pot is not touched. The value of a contract is 10 units for misère, 20 units for slam, 30 units for open misère and 40 units for open slam. In contrast to ordinary suit contracts, these values are doubled if the hand version is played. The resulting value is paid by the declarer to each defender, or by each defender to the declarer, depending on whether declarer made it or not.
In another form of Illustrated Préférence, the open contracts do not exist and to win a slam it is sufficient to win 6 consecutive tricks.
Variations of Austrian Préférence In un-illustrated Préférence, all payments may be multiplied with the numerical bidding value of the contract.