Ombre
Ombre or l'Hombre is a fast-moving seventeenth-century trick-taking card game for three players. It has been described as "the most successful card game ever invented."
Its history began in Spain around the end of the 16th century as a four-person game. It is one of the earliest card games known in Europe and by far the most classic game of its type, directly ancestral to Euchre, Boston and Solo Whist. Despite its difficult rules, complicated point score and strange foreign terms, it swept Europe in the last quarter of the 17th century, becoming Lomber and L'Hombre in Germany, Lumbur in Austria and Ombre in England, occupying a position of prestige similar to contract bridge today. Ombre eventually developed into a whole family of related games such as the four-hand Quadrille, three-hand Tritrille, five-hand Quintille and six-hand Sextille, as well as German Solo, Austrian Préférence and Swedish Vira, itself "one of the most complex card games ever devised." Other games borrowed features from Ombre such as bidding; for example, the gambling game of Bête, formerly known as Homme, and the tarot game of Taroc l'Hombre.
History
The historical importance of Ombre in the field of playing cards is the fact that it was the first card game in which a trump suit was established by bidding rather than by the random process of turning the first card of the stock. This game developed from Triunfo, though it was from L'Hombre that the idea of bidding was adopted into other card games such as Skat, and Tarot, which owes Hombre a good portion of its betting system as well.Ombre's precise origins are unknown, but it reached England and France at about the same time. The earliest French reference dates to 1671 and it is recorded in England as early as 1661 with a set of rules being published in 1662. The game continued to be in vogue in almost every corner of Europe from the late 17th through the 18th centuries.
As with most games, Ombre acquired many variations of increasing complexity over the years, until its popularity was eclipsed by the second quarter of the 18th century by a new four player French variant called Quadrille, later displaced by the English Whist. Other lines of descent and hybridization produced three-handed games like Preference and four-handed ones such as German Solo and Mediateur. Under the name Tresillo, it survived in parts of Spain during the nineteenth century, as Voltarete in Portugal and Brazil, as Rocambor in countries such as Bolivia, Peru, and Colombia in the twentieth century, and it is still played as L'Hombre in Denmark, mostly in Jutland and on the island of Funen, where it is organized by the Danish Hombre Union, as well as in the Faroe Islands and Iceland. Today, Tresillo survives in Spain and Rocambor is still reported in South America. It may still exist in Portugal under the name Mediator.
Daines Barrington, English antiquary and naturalist, says that Ombre was probably introduced in England by Catherine of Braganza, the Queen of Charles II, as Edmund Waller, the court poet, had a poem entitled "On a Card Torn at Ombre by the Queen". She was such a keen player, as were so many members of English high society by the end of 1674, that the Lower House of Parliament proposed to pass an Act against the playing of Ombre, or at least to limit the stakes at £5, a proposition received as "ridiculous" at that time. But a small book of rules, The Royal game of the ombre written at the request of divers honourable persons, published in London in 1660, would support the inference that the game was known in England before the Restoration.
In the late 18th century, the three player version of its offshoot, German Solo, was often referred to as German Ombre, a game popular with "the lower classes" in northern Germany.
Etymology
Ombre takes its name from the Spanish phrase originally used by the player who declared trumps: Yo soy el hombre, i.e., "I am the man". It appears to be merely an alteration of the game Primero and it is to be presumed that it was invented prior to the publication of the Dictionary of Sebastián de Covarrubias in 1611, although it makes no mention of it. The spelling changed from "Hombre" to "Ombre" in English due to a misunderstanding that the name came from the French ombre meaning "shadow."Cotton's Compleat Gamester says that "there were several sorts of this game, but that which the chief was called "Renegado", at which three only could play, and to whom were dealt nine cards apiece so that by discarding the eights, nines and tens, there would remain thirteen cards in the stock". Seymour's The Compleat Gamester contains a frontispiece representing a party of rank playing it and describes it as a game so much in fashion that at its peak by the turn of the eighteenth century it inspired a unique form of furniture: a three-sided card table. According to Jean-Baptiste Bullet, writer and professor of divinity at the University of Besançon, the Spaniards, occasionally also called the game "Manilla" after the name of the second matador, a word signifying a slayer in Spanish.
Summary
Ombre is a three-handed game in which a single player, originally known as Ombre or l'Hombre, plays against his two opponents. The game is traditionally played with a forty-card Spanish-suited deck with suits of coins and cups and swords and clubs, but when it spread to Northern Europe French-suited cards with suits of diamonds and hearts and spades and clubs were usually substituted.Once the cards are dealt, players bid for the right to choose what suit will be trumps. The trump maker undertakes to win more tricks than either of the other players, and wins the pool if successful. If an opponent of the Ombre wins the most tricks the Ombre pays that opponent. If there is a tie for most tricks the Ombre pays into the pool. There are additional payments for various feats such as winning all the tricks.
Ombre Renegado
By the 17th century, when it caught on outside Spain, most people were playing a three-player variation called "Renegado" first described in 1663 in Madrid. The terms used were those in English, which were anglicized versions of French versions of the original Spanish words.Deck
Traditionally, a Spanish 40-card deck is used, but a French-suited deck may be substituted in which case spades correspond to swords, clubs to clubs, hearts to cups and diamonds to coins. The eights, nines and tens can be stripped out of a standard 52-card deck to make a suitable 40-card deck.Rank of cards
The rank of the cards in the game depends on whether a black or a red suit is chosen as trumps. The basic ranking of numerals is reversed in red suits, being 7 low; and a red suit is always one card longer than a black one of the same status, whether trump or plain.The black aces are permanent trumps, and the top three trumps are called matadors or estuches:
- black 2 or red 7
Deal
Whoever draws the highest card from the deck becomes the dealer; the turn to deal and play rotates counter-clockwise. Before play, the dealer antes five chips to the pool, deals nine cards in batches of three, and places the remaining thirteen face down on the playing surface to form the stock, or talon.Bid
Whoever bids highest becomes Ombre, chooses trumps, and seeks to win more tricks than either opponent individually. Thus, five or more wins, and four wins if the others split three-two. The possible bids are, from low to high:- Entrada: Ombre announces trumps, discards, and draws replacements from the stock.
- Vuelta: Ombre turns the top card of the stock to determine trumps, discards and draws.
- Solo: Ombre announces trumps, but plays without discarding and drawing.
Play
Eldest leads first and the winner of each trick leads to the next. The trick is taken by the highest card of the suit led or by the highest trump if any are played. Normally, suit must be followed if possible, otherwise any card may be played. Matadors, however, can only be forced by higher matadors, not by lower ones or trumps. That is, if the player's only trumps are matadors he need not follow to a trump, but may discard instead. However, if a higher matador is led, and his only trump is a lower one, he is obliged to play it.If Ombre takes the first five tricks straight off, he can claim the game won without need for further play. If instead he leads to the sixth, he thereby obligates himself to win all nine, thus increasing his potential winnings or penalties. If Ombre thinks he cannot win, he may surrender at any time before playing to the fourth trick, but he may not do this if playing a "Solo". In a "Vuelta", his surrender must be accepted by both opponents. However, if the game played was "Entrada", either opponent may himself take over the role of Ombre and play the rest of the hand as if he had made the bid himself.