Tapp Tarock (), also called Viennese Tappen (), Tappen or Tapper, is a three-player tarot card game which traditionally uses the 54-card Industrie und Glück deck. Before the Anschluss (1938), it was the preferred card game of Viennese coffee houses, for example, the Literatencafés and Café Central. Even today Tapp Tarock is played sporadically. The exact date when it appeared is not possible to identify; some sources suggest it may have been developed in Austria in the early 19th century, but its mention in caricature operas in 1800 and 1806 suggest it was well known even by then and must have arisen in the late 18th century. The oldest description of the actual rules is dated to 1821. Tapp Tarock is considered a good entry level game before players attempt more complex Tarock forms like Cego, Illustrated Tarock or Königrufen.
Name
Tapp is the name of the face-down stack of cards in the middle of the table – in other games known as the talon or stock. The names of other card games are also derived from it, including Tappu or Tappä for the Swiss Tarock variant of Troggu, as well as the Austrian Stubaital valley game of Dobbm and the south German game of Tapp which was an attempt to play Tapp Tarock with ordinary cards.
Other names for Tapp Tarock were Taroc(k)-Tapp(en), Taroc(k)tappen or just Tappen or Tapper. An older name or name of a predecessor game was Pagatjagen; a 42-card variant was Zwölfertarock and a variant with 40 cards was Einfaches Tarock.<ref name=DNB>[https://portal.dnb.de/opac.htm?method=showFullRecord¤tResultId=tarok%26any¤tPosition=38 Tarok] at portal.dnb.de. Retrieved 1 March 2021.</ref> Because the announcement "ich tappe" ("I'll tapp") referred to the lowest level of the game which was soon dropped, it became fashionable to name the game after the next highest level, Dreiern, Dreierl or Dreierles, names which are prevalent to this day in Baden-Württemberg. In the late 19th century the name Zeco''' was also used. That suggests a link with Cego, which refers to the Blind, as the talon is known in that game. Tapp, also called Württemberg Tarock, is a south German game that is not a member of the true Tarock family but may have originated as an attempt to play a form of three-handed Tarock with a standard 36-card, German-suited pack.
History
Tapp Tarock is recorded as early as 1800 in Amor und Psyche, an opera by Ludwig Abeille, where the character Jupiter refers to Tarocktappen. It is also mentioned in 1806 in another opera (as Tarocktappen) and in an anthology of letters (as Taroktappen), both published in Vienna. The first description of its rules, however, appears in Theoretisch-praktische Anweisung zur gründlichen Erlernung des beliebten Tarok-Tappen Spiels, published in Vienna in 1821._ (1821).
Tapp Tarock is probably the oldest tarock variant in which four basic features of tarock are found together: the shortening of the 78-card tarot deck to the current 54 cards the conversion from Italian suits to French suits the conversion of The Fool or Sküs (Excuse) to simply being the 22nd and highest trump the bonus of winning the final trick with trump 1 (Pagat Ultimo)
The conversion of the Sküs was completed, according to the tarot expert Michael Dummett, in Austria. In Troggu, the older Swiss tarot game, the Fool can function as the highest trump or as the excuse. The introduction of the Pagat Ultimo, according to card game historian John McLeod, is believed to have come from the ancient Italian game of Trappola, which was widely played in Austria as the variant Hundertspiel.
The original 1821 rules only had 3 positive bids: Tapper, Dreier and Solo. Tapper was the lowest bid – announced by saying "I'll tap" (ich tappe) or just tapping on the table – and originally entitled the declarer to exchange with all six cards of the talon and count the discards to his total at the end. By the time the rules had been printed, a Tapper was usually not played out; the declarer simply received the game points for it and the deal passed to the next player in turn. By 1838, Tapp Tarock had become sufficiently popular in south Germany that Tap-Taroc packs were being advertised by C. Diehl of Darmstadt. Likewise in 1872, Tap-Tarock cards were being sold in Karlsruhe alongside Tarock, Whist and Piquet packs. Dummett believed that the game continued to be played in Germany until the end of the 19th century and certainly in continued to be recorded in German and Austria compendia throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. After the Second World War, more complicated variants such as Illustrated Tarock were developed and, today, Dreiertarock is its tournament equivalent.