Ombre

Ombre is a trick-taking card game[1] that originated in Spain. The name comes from the Spanish word hombre which means “man”.  It is a complicated game with many variants and can be played with two to five players.  The most popular variant was a three players version called Ombre Renegado or “renegade man”.

While it is unclear how Ombre left Spain, it saw a rapid growth in popularity around Europe during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.  By the middle of the eighteenth century, a variant of the game called quadrille became more popular, but Ombre survived in Spain and its colonies as tresillo until the twentieth century.  It is still played today in Denmark. 

Ombre uses a 40 card deck, which can be made by removing eights, nines, and tens from a regular deck.  To win a round, a player must simply play the highest value card.  Part of the difficulty in the game comes from the fact that during a round, the rank of cards changes depending on the Ombre’s starting bet. To play with three people, the dealer deals nine cards to each of the players.  Each player inspects their cards and then bids, with the winner becoming the Ombre.  The Ombre must then win more rounds than the other players.