As you can tell by the condition of the box, Rook is not a game that has languished, forgotten, on our shelves for years. We average about once a week with this one - typically when we get together with my parents. This is a game I've played or have seen played all my life. When I was a child I would stand at the edge of the table watching my dad, my grandpa and my uncles play and desperately wanting to be allowed to join in. It was often the game that was played at Christmas or Thanksgiving gatherings at my grandparents house. Below are a number of pictures of shuffling and dealing. I included as many as I did because, as the gestures and expressions indicate, it is during this time that recent hands or even games from weeks or years ago are recollected and re-hashed.
Below is my first hand for the day - not bad - not sure I'd bid real high on it though, as there are only two cards in the kitty, and I'm likely to be called a partner with the number of 14s and 1s in my hand - wouldn't want to bid up my potential partner! (Ones are like aces, and 14s are the next highest card.)
This is a trick-taking trump game. The structure of the deck is very similar to a standard 52-card poker deck, but it has 14 cards per suit rather than 13, the suits are colors rather than symbols, and there is a unique card known as the rook. I'd always heard that this game was invented so Christians could play games without having to use those "devil cards." I looked it up its history on Wikipedia today, and here's what I learned:
"[Rook is sometimes] referred to as
Christian cards or
missionary poker, Rook playing cards were introduced by Parker Brothers in 1906 to provide an alternative to standard playing cards for those in the Puritan tradition or Mennonite culture who considered the face cards in a regular deck inappropriate because of their association with gambling and cartomancy."
As with most card games the rules can vary. At our house we play that the rook card is the lowest trump card. We also play "call partner" and that you can put points in the kitty (whoever takes the last trick gets the points in the kitty as well).
David has turned score-keeping into a fine art. This is true with all card games we play, but most particularly with Rook, in which he keeps track not only of points but also of who took the bid, what color was called as trump, how much the bid was, whether the bidder and partner made their bid or not, whether or not points were left in the kitty, etc., etc., etc. It's kind of like having a full blown diary entry on every game!
This was a short game, as it was Mother's Day - only four hands. All in all a good way to spend time on a special day or any day!
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