Trick Taking Games Explained

What are Trick Taking Games and Why They Have Lasted Centuries

Trick taking games have been played across the world for several hundred years and the core mechanic has not meaningfully changed. You play a card. Other players follow. The highest card of the led suit wins, unless a trump card overrules it. The winner leads the next trick. That structure, unchanged since at least the seventeenth century, still produces some of the most satisfying competitive card game experiences available today.

What has changed is the variety of things designers have done with that foundation. The Crew applies cooperative mission conditions to trick taking and won the Kennerspiel des Jahres in 2020. Fox in the Forest creates a complete two-player experience from the format. Skull King adds push-your-luck bidding that produces shouting at the table with remarkable regularity. The modern trick taking category is richer and more varied than at any previous point in its history, and 2025 may have been its finest year for new releases.

This post covers what trick taking games actually are, the vocabulary of the category, where it came from, the different forms it takes today, and the games I recommend at every level, including family options and recent releases from 2024 and 2025.

What Trick Taking Actually Means

Wikipedia’s definition is a useful starting point: a trick taking game is a card or tile-based game where play of a hand centres on a series of finite rounds called tricks, with each trick won by one of the players according to the value of cards played in it.

In practical terms: players each receive a hand of cards. One player leads a card to start a trick. Other players must follow suit if they can, meaning they play a card of the same suit as the led card. If they cannot follow suit, they can play any card. Once everyone has played, the highest card of the led suit wins the trick, unless someone played a trump card, in which case the highest trump wins. The winner of each trick leads the next one.

That is the entire mechanical foundation. The strategic depth comes from the context layered on top. What do you win tricks for? How many do you need? Are there certain cards to avoid? Do you need to predict how many tricks you will win before you see how the hand plays out? These questions, which vary across every trick taking game, produce enormously different experiences from a structurally identical foundation.

Trick taking vs climbing games: Climbing games are related but distinct. In climbing games like Tichu, players shed cards by playing melds that beat the previous meld. In trick taking, you play one card per round and must follow suit. The Crew is a trick taker. Tichu is a climber. The distinction matters when choosing what to play, though many players enjoy both.

The Vocabulary of Trick Taking

Trick taking games use several terms consistently across all variants. Understanding these before your first game removes most of the initial confusion.

Trump: A designated suit that beats all other suits regardless of value. In Spades, spades are always trump. In many games, the trump suit is revealed or chosen differently each round. Playing a trump card on a trick you cannot win by following suit is called ruffing.

Void: When you hold no cards of a particular suit, you are void in that suit. Being void gives you strategic flexibility because you can play any card, including trump, when that suit is led.

Following suit: The requirement to play a card of the same suit as the led card if you hold one. Failure to follow suit when you could have is usually called a revoke and carries a penalty in most traditional games.

Bidding: In games like Spades, Oh Hell!, and Skull King, players predict how many tricks they will win before the hand is played. Accurate bids score; inaccurate bids often penalise.

Trick avoidance: Games where the goal is to win as few tricks as possible, or to avoid winning tricks containing specific cards. Hearts is the most widely known trick avoidance game. Also crosses into: Set Collection.

Where Trick Taking Came From

Trick taking as a mechanic has documented history from at least the fifteenth century. Karnoffel (documented around 1426) is often cited as the earliest known game with recognisable trick taking mechanics. Whist, which became the dominant trick taking game in Britain from the seventeenth century, is the ancestor of Bridge and the direct model for most of the suit-following rules still used today.

Bridge, developed in the late nineteenth century and formalised in its Contract Bridge form in 1925, is the most strategically sophisticated traditional trick taking game and remains widely played competitively across the world. Hearts, Spades, and Euchre all developed as more accessible variants with specific rule innovations that made them suit different social and regional contexts.

The hobby board game world largely ignored trick taking for much of its modern development. The mechanic was associated with traditional card games and perceived as separate from the Eurogame design space. That changed significantly with the arrival of The Crew.

The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine (2019), designed by Thomas Sing and published by Kosmos, won the Kennerspiel des Jahres in 2020 and introduced trick taking to a generation of hobby gamers who had never engaged with the format before. It applied cooperative mission conditions to standard trick taking structure and created a communication restriction that produced genuine collective puzzle-solving. The category has not been the same since.

The explosion of designer trick taking games since 2020 has been remarkable. Chris Wray, one of the most knowledgeable voices in the category, noted in his 2024 list of twenty favourite trick taking games that there had been several additions since his 2021 list, in large part due to the recent explosion of interest in the mechanic. 2025 was particularly strong, with Don’t Eat the Meeples identifying ten great trick taking and climbing games from that year alone, including the Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring cooperative trick taker and several innovative bidding variants.

Why Trick Taking Works

Every hand is a unique puzzle

The hand of cards you receive each round is different, and the strategic decisions it creates depend on its specific composition relative to what other players are likely to hold. Learning to read a hand and understand its potential across a session is a skill that develops gradually and rewards continued play without ever becoming exhausted. I have played hundreds of rounds of Hearts across my life and still encounter situations that require genuine thought.

Perfect information is impossible but inference is rich

You can see your own hand and the cards played to each trick. From those observations, you can infer what opponents are likely to hold based on what they have and have not played. A player who failed to follow a suit was void in it: they have no more of those cards. A player who played unexpectedly low may be sandbagging for a later trick. This inference layer keeps experienced players perpetually engaged.

The format is compact and portable

Most trick taking games are card games that fit in a small box or require nothing more than a standard deck. This makes the category one of the most practically accessible in the hobby. The Crew fits in a coat pocket. Fox in the Forest fits in a bag. Even the most elaborate modern designer trick takers rarely need more table space than a standard game of cards.

The category has depth for both new and experienced players

Traditional trick taking games like Hearts and Spades have genuinely taught the mechanic to millions of players across generations. Modern designer variants layer new mechanics on top of familiar foundations, meaning experienced traditional card game players and hobby gamers can both find satisfying content within the same general category.

The Different Forms Trick Taking Takes

Standard competitive trick taking: Players compete to win the most tricks or to reach a scoring target. Spades, Whist, and Euchre sit here. Score accumulates across multiple hands. Also crosses into: Card Games.

Trick avoidance: The goal is to win as few tricks as possible, or to avoid specific high-value cards. Hearts, Oh Hell! with penalty suits, and Ninety-Nine all use avoidance mechanics. Also crosses into: Card Games, Set Collection.

Bidding trick taking: Players predict how many tricks they will win before the hand is played. Spades, Oh Hell!, Wizard, and Skull King all use bidding. Accurate prediction scores; inaccuracy penalises. The bidding layer adds a meta-skill of assessing hand strength before playing. Also crosses into: Push Your Luck.

Cooperative trick taking: Players work together to complete specific objectives rather than competing against each other. The Crew, the Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring trick taker, and some versions of Hanabi use this format. Also crosses into: Cooperative Games.

Asymmetric objectives: Players have individually different objectives for the same hand. Fox in the Forest has specific point thresholds for winning exactly one, two, three, or more tricks. Hanamikoji applies similar asymmetry. Quattro Trick-Taking gives each player a completely different objective for earning points, rotating each round.

Hidden information variants: The backs of cards in one suit are visible, or partial information is public. 9 Lives is cited by Chris Wray as the finest game in the visible-back subgenre: the winner of each trick can pick up a card other than the one they played, creating rich information management decisions.

Trump manipulation: Players can influence which suit is trump, change its identity, or use special cards that modify trump rules. These variants add a strategic layer of trump management to the standard following structure.

Games Worth Playing

Traditional trick taking (a brief guide)

Before the hobby category, trick taking games were played with a standard deck for centuries. Several are worth knowing even if you mainly play hobby games.

Hearts: A four-player trick avoidance game where hearts score penalty points and the Queen of Spades scores thirteen. The exception, shooting the moon by winning all hearts and the Queen, is one of the most dramatic reversals in any card game. Teach in five minutes, plays in twenty.

Spades: A partnership bidding game where spades are always trump. The bidding mechanic, where partners combine bids without discussing their hands, is one of the most interesting in traditional gaming. Standard in most UK households.

Whist: The ancestor of Bridge without the bidding layer. Clean and fast, it teaches the follow-suit mechanics of trick taking in their purest form. An excellent starting point for players new to the mechanic.

Family and gateway modern trick taking

The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine (2019, Kennerspiel des Jahres 2020): The Crew is the game that brought trick taking to the hobby mainstream and it remains the best entry point for groups who have never played the format before. Players cooperate to complete fifty missions using standard trick taking mechanics, but with a strict communication restriction: you can share one card per round using specific rules. The missions escalate in difficulty and the cooperative structure removes the competitive pressure that can make traditional trick taking feel unfamiliar. It fits in a coat pocket and plays in ten to twenty minutes. Also crosses into: Cooperative Games, Card Games.

Skull King (2013): Skull King is the trick taking game I reach for most often at a game night that includes players who enjoy both traditional card games and hobby games. Players bid how many tricks they will win each round, with exact bids scoring well and inexact bids penalising. The Skull King card itself beats everything, the Mermaid beats the Skull King, and the Pirate beats Mermaids, creating a brief rock-paper-scissors layer that produces the occasional spectacular upset. The shouting when someone’s perfect bid collapses in the final round is reliable. Also crosses into: Bidding, Push Your Luck, Card Games.

Wizard (1984): Wizard is a bidding trick taking game with three types of special card: Wizards that always win, Jesters that always lose, and the numbered suits in between. Players bid the exact number of tricks they will win and score for accuracy. The bidding and the hand management are both accessible from the first session and the game rewards careful players without punishing casual ones too heavily. Widely available and genuinely a classic of the format. Also crosses into: Card Games.

New to designer trick taking

Fox in the Forest (2017): Fox in the Forest is a two-player trick taking game with a fairy tale forest theme. The scoring is non-linear: winning a moderate number of tricks scores well, while winning too many or too few scores poorly or nothing. This inversion of the usual win-more-tricks logic creates a distinctive strategic tension around deliberately losing tricks when you are ahead. Plays in twenty-five minutes. One of the best dedicated two-player games in the hobby. Also crosses into: Card Games.

The Crew: Mission Deep Sea (2021): The sequel to The Crew uses the same cooperative mission mechanic but introduces more complex mission conditions and a slightly different communication structure. If you have played the original extensively, Mission Deep Sea provides fresh challenges across a new set of scenarios. The two games can also be played back to back. Also crosses into: Cooperative Games, Card Games.

No Thanks! (a trick taking variant): No Thanks! is primarily a push-your-luck card game but the mechanic of declining to take a card, passing the decision around the table, shares structural DNA with trick avoidance. Worth knowing as a gateway title that bridges the two categories. Also crosses into: Push Your Luck, Card Games.

Recent releases (2024 and 2025)

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Trick-Taking Game (2025): Don’t Eat the Meeples called this an absolute delight and described it as a cooperative campaign-driven trick taking game following the events of the first part of the trilogy, executed faithfully and with real respect for the source material. It operates in the same cooperative subgenre as The Crew but stands on its own merits. The varied chapters range from accessible to seriously challenging. For groups who have played The Crew and want more cooperative trick taking with a beloved setting, this is the obvious next step. Designed by Bryan Bornmueller, published by Office Dog Games. Also crosses into: Cooperative Games, Card Games.

Skull Queen (2024): Don’t Eat the Meeples listed Skull Queen as a fantastic push-your-luck trick taker where players move up and down a plank for points per suit, with going off the plank costing points for that suit. The push-your-luck layer on top of standard trick taking bidding creates interesting risk management decisions each round. Released in Germany in late 2024 and gaining wider attention through 2025. Also crosses into: Push Your Luck, Card Games.

Trickarus (2024): Described by Don’t Eat the Meeples as an incredible example of how to make theme work with a trick taking game. Each player is their own Icarus, daring to fly too close to the sun. The first player to fly into the sun triggers the game’s end, often leading to the next-best player winning. The thematic coherence between the myth of Icarus and the push-your-luck trick taking structure is one of the more elegant design achievements in recent memory. Also crosses into: Push Your Luck, Card Games.

Dracula vs Van Helsing (2025): An asymmetric two-player trick taking game where players take the roles of Dracula and Van Helsing, each playing by different rules within the trick taking framework. Cards not played out into the trick line must have their action executed, meaning deciding which cards to commit and which to activate is the central puzzle. Widely praised in 2025 from the trick taking community. Also crosses into: Card Games, Abstract Strategy.

Experienced players

Fox in the Forest Duet (2019): Fox in the Forest Duet applies the Forest setting to a cooperative two-player variant where both players work together to move a token through a forest before the cards run out. Different cooperative rules than The Crew’s mission structure. One of the best cooperative two-player card games available. Also crosses into: Cooperative Games, Card Games.

Tichu (1991): Tichu is a partnership climbing game that sits at the boundary of trick taking and card shedding. Four players in two teams compete to shed cards using a specific combination structure. The Tichu call, where a player bets on winning all four bomb combinations, is one of the most dramatic high-stakes moments in any card game format. Widely played in competitive communities. Also crosses into: Card Games.

The Cooperative Trick Taking Expansion

The success of The Crew has created an entire subgenre of cooperative trick taking games that deserves its own note. CoopGestalt’s 2025 list of top cooperative roll-and-write and trick taking games demonstrates how significant the cooperative trick taking community has become. The design challenge of cooperative trick taking is considerable: standard trick taking mechanics create private information that is difficult to share cooperatively without losing the strategic tension, and The Crew’s solution, a specific communication protocol, has been widely admired and frequently imitated.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring trick taker applies the same principle in 2025 with a narrative campaign structure that provides additional motivation across multiple sessions. Other cooperative trick taking designs have explored different communication rules and shared objective structures. For groups who specifically want cooperative card game experiences, this subgenre now provides multiple excellent options across different settings and complexity levels.

Common Mistakes

• Not understanding following suit requirements. In most trick taking games, you must follow suit if you can. Failing to do so, called a revoke, is usually a significant penalty. Learning what constitutes a revoke in the specific game you are playing is the first rules priority.
• Ignoring void signals. When a player fails to follow suit, they are void in it. Experienced players use this information to infer what remains in hands. Ignoring void signals is one of the most common sources of strategic error for players new to the format.
• Overbidding in bidding games. New players often bid optimistically, assuming their best cards will all win. Experienced players account for the realistic chance of losing tricks where they expect to win. Conservative bidding that accumulates modest accurate scores usually outperforms ambitious inaccurate bidding across a full game.
• Not considering card value in context. A high card in one suit may be the wrong card to play in a particular trick. The decision of which card is strongest is always contextual: a nine of spades beats every non-spade non-trump card but loses to any trump in a game with a live trump suit.
• Assuming trick avoidance is simpler than trick winning. Hearts and similar avoidance games require different skills to trick-winning games, not easier ones. Deliberately losing tricks without giving away powerful avoidance cards is a distinct skill set that takes time to develop.

Is Trick Taking for You?

Trick taking works for almost any group. Traditional trick taking games are accessible enough to teach to anyone who has played cards, and modern designer variants provide the strategic depth that hobby gamers expect. The category covers ten-minute cooperative games and multi-hour partnership experiences across a wider range than most board game categories.

The category works less well for groups who specifically dislike card games as a format or who prefer games with heavy physical components. Trick taking is almost entirely played through card mechanics and there is limited visual drama between plays.

If you are not sure where to start, The Crew for a group new to the category, Skull King for a group that wants something louder and more competitive, and Fox in the Forest for two players. All three are widely available from UK retailers including Zatu Games and most independent game shops.