Description

Cego, Zego or Ceco (from lat.caecus = blind) is a traditional German card game, for 3 or 4 players, played primarily in the Black Forest. Hardly a farm house which has no cego deck. The game is played mainly throughout the winter, when there is little work to do in the fields and few daylight hours.

A Cego deck consists of 54 cards: 22 "Truck", that means trump cards, 16 "Bilder" or picture cards, king, queen, knight and jack in the 4 suits. and 16 "Leere" or empty cards, also in the 4 suits.
The 22 trumps are numbered from 1 to 21, and a single picture card without suit, which would be #22, the highest trump, commonly called "Gsties", sometimes "Sküs" from ital. "scusa" = sorry (for taking the trick).

The game is basically a trick tacking game, you've got to follow suit, if not available you have to trump.

Usually one player will play against the other three, the player following the dealer will have to play if no one bids for the play.

Cards are dealt 11 to each player and 10 face down in the middle (the Cego or blind cards). These 10 cards will go to the highest bidder, depending on his bid either remaining face down or he discards 9 or 10 cards from his hand and takes up the Cego cards. A simple play would be a bid for Cego, discarding 9 cards from your hand, taking up 10 cards, then choosing one additional card for your pile and starting play.

This is the interesting and unusual part of this game. Your decision to bid depends on the cards which you will not have available for the coming game, but you will get to play with mainly unknown cards. Therefore the title "Blind".

There are a lot of other options, available for every player or only the bidder, for example:
-Solo play: when you have lots of trump in your initial play, no cards are discarded.
-Räuber, rubber: when no one bids, every player on his own, you try to have fewest points.
-Bettel: the bidder tries to get no cards.
-Piccolo: the bidder tries to make exactly one trick.

Scoring is done by counting out your points, only three trumps (Gstiess, 21 and 1) and all the pictures count.
Points and counting method differ, but the bidder always need the majority of points, every 5 points over or under mean an additional factor.