A trick-taking game where you win not by taking the most tricks, but by predicting correctly. 22 cards, 3 to 5 players, fast games.
African Tarot is also known as Whist 22. It is a cousin of Oh Hell, played with the 22 trumps of a tarot deck. The Mexican variant is also called Mexican Tarot.
African Tarot uses only 22 cards: the 21 trumps, numbered 1 to 21, and the Excuse. There are no suits: only a card's value decides who wins the trick.
| Card | Value |
|---|---|
| Trumps 1 to 21 | Their own number (21 is the highest, apart from the Excuse) |
| The Excuse | 0 or 22, chosen by the player who plays it |
The 1, the 21 and the Excuse are traditionally the most precious cards: play them at the right moment and watch for them in your opponents' hands.
Each round, you bid how many tricks you expect to win. Your goal is to win exactly that many. A correct bet keeps you safe; a missed one costs lives, more the bigger the gap.
The game ends when only one player still has lives. You can also set a limited number of deals.
Before each round, every player in turn bids a number of tricks from 0 to 5. Passing is not allowed.
By default, the last bidder cannot choose the number that would make all bids add up exactly to the number of tricks, so there is always at least one loser.
On your turn, play any card from your hand: you never have to follow suit. The highest card wins the trick.
The number of cards dealt drops each round, like a staircase, down to 1 card per player (5 cards with 4 players, 6 with 3, 4 with 5).
When you play the Excuse, you decide on the spot whether it is worth 0 (the lowest) or 22 (higher than the 21).
Each player starts with lives set by the objective: 14 lives for “King to Ace” (the count shows King, Queen, Knight, Jack… down to Ace), or 5, 10, 15, 20, 30 or 50.
The ranking shows the lives remaining after each round. At 0, a player is eliminated.
Everything can be set in the game's Options:
| Variant | Effect |
|---|---|
| Mexican (Mexican Tarot) | 1-card round: yours is hidden, your opponents' cards are visible. |
| Blind | 1-card round: no card is visible, not even yours. |
| Must overtrump | Play a higher card than the trick's if you can (except the Excuse). |
| Double 20 | If the 20 and the 21 fall in the same trick, the lowest card wins. |
| Excuse rule | Changing (0 or 22), always zero (always loses) or super 22 (beats the 21). |
| Excuse before last trick | You must play the Excuse before the last trick. |
| No Excuse | 21-card game. |
| Forbidden bid | Turns on or off the ban on the last player making the total even. |
| Objective and deals | King to Ace or 5 to 50 points; unlimited game or 1 to 50 deals. |
| Direction and first bidder | Clockwise or counter-clockwise; first bidder random, last (easy) or first (hard). |
Test your predictions against bots.