Festival de tarot de Tulle
This year, a round of the French national championship is being held at the same time, so Tulle’s tarot festival has been reduced from a five-day event to a weekend affair.
Although there will only be about ten players, it will still be a serious event for players and audience alike. Local contestant Christophe Greda was runner-up in the 2001 French national championships, and the usual contingent from New Caledonia will have travelled half way round the world from this group of islands way to the east of Australia.
At first sight, you would never guess that Christophe was the Limousin region’s great hope for the competition. 35 years old, born and brought up in Toulouse, he started playing tarot at the age of 14. “Like pétanque, it’s one of my passions, and if you can finish in the first five it pays well enough to cover your travel costs.”
At 1500 euros, the winner’s prize isn’t trivial, either. Christophe works as a chef, so he can’t take much time off to play in competitions around the rest of France. It was in 2001 that he was runner-up in the French national championship for free play (i.e. not duplicate, so all games have different deals) but this shy, quiet man prefers to stay at home and play at the Tulle club. “All my friends are here. This is where I feel at home.”
Already twice the winner of this competition, he expects to win again this year. Asked about the role of chance in the game of tarot, he replies:
“In free play, about 50%. In duplicate, zero.”
French tarot can be played by two to five players. It is a trick-taking game with bidding, but has some significant difference from bridge or whist, the most significant of which are:
- the 78-card deck has a permanent trump suit in addition to the four main suits
- in the 3- and 4-player game, the person who leads plays against the rest, who form a temporary team
- in the 5-card game, the person who leads calls the suit of a king which he does not possess (or a queen if he has all 4 kings) and the player holding that card becomes his secret partner until he plays the card and makes himself known to the others
For full details of the rules, see rules of the French tarot game. If you understand French, you should also take a look at shogix.net
This is cool! It’s great to see the exposure of Tarot gaming in the English language press. Also, a heads up, the Shogix.net website is now bilingual and contains an English language section.
Thanks, James. I didn’t notice the little flag!
I’m hoping to devote a significant part of this site to the card game - as you say, the English language press is somewhat lacking in this aspect. Do you know anything about English speakers playing the game? I haven’t researched that, so I welcome any input.
je recherche les concours de tarot avec un 1er prix de 1500€ ou 1000€ minimum dans toute la france.
Merci de me contacter par mail.