Background Information on Rook

Date: Sat, 11 Nov 1995 22:07:32 +0000
From: John McLeod <john@pagat.demon.co.uk>
To: button@gateway.grumman.com
Subject: Re: Rook

Peter,

Thanks for your message. I have had a look at your page, and I'll put a
link to it at my next update. I especially like your method of having
parallel pages of rules and tips, with references across. 

At the end of the page, you raise the question about the origin of the
game and why it is called Rook. A few weeks ago I would have had no idea,
but now I can give you at least part of an answer. 

In 1906, Parker Brothers designed and published a special deck of cards
called Rook. The deck has 57 cards - four suits (red, yellow, green and
black) with cards numbered 1 to 14 in each, plus a single "rook" card,
with a picture of the bird. These cards continued to be made, and you can
still buy them today - I was in the USA last week and found Rook cards on
sale in many stores in Manhattan - for example all branches of Woolworth
seem to have them. A deck costs about $7. 

Fortunately Rook cards come with a book of rules. The ones I bought last
week give rules for 19 games you can play with the cards. The first 12 of
these are all point trick games; the last 7 are non-trick taking games and
are clearly adaptations of standard card games to use the rook deck. 

The trick-taking Rook games are point trick games where the counting cards
are generally the 5's (5 points), the 10's and 14's (10 points) and some
of them also use the Rook card (20 points). Normally the 14 is the highest
card of each suit, and the numbers rank in order down to the 1 (lowest).
The Rook, when used, is generally the highest trump. 

There are some games that vary from this scheme. Of particular interest is
a game called One-High Partnership Rook, in which the One is the highest
card of each suit, counting 15 points and ranking immediately above the 14
(worth 10). The 2 is lowest in a plain suit, but in this game the Rook
card is the lowest trump below the 2. There is an additional score of 20
points for the side that makes the majority of the tricks (20 points to
the non-bidding side if tied 7 each). A side which wins all the tricks
gets 100 bonus. 

The similarity is so striking that I have no doubt that your Princeton
game is derived from One-High Partnership Rook (rules copyrighted by
Parker Bros in 1934), adapted for a standard pack. You have some minor
differences - the ones that strike me are: 

Princeton Rook (standard cards)   One-High Partnership Rook (Rook cards)

Two non-counting cards rank       Three non-counting cards rank
between the king and the ten      between the 14 and the 10

20 points for the last trick      20 points for the majority of tricks

Lowest bid is 70                  Lowest bid is 75

Bidder may choose to lead         Left-hand opponent of bidder leads

Count card may be dropped         Count card must not be dropped

There is another point that interests me. There are several games played
in mainland China with a standard pack of cards, in which the counting
cards are king=10, ten=10 and five=5 (no score for aces or jokers,
though). This seems a bit of a coincidence, and I wonder whether there is
any possible connection between these games and Rook - in that either
Parker Bros got the idea from China, or the Chinese somehow found out
about Rook. I have absolutely no evidence for either beyond the
coincidence of point values, and maybe it is a rather far-fetched idea. 

Best wishes,
-- 
John McLeod      john@pagat.demon.co.uk      100114.220@compuserve.com
For information on card games visit http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/card-games/