User:Bermicourt/Card games/Chapanka

Chapanka appears to be the name for at least three Polish card games:

• Polish Snap
• Polish Whist
• Polish Hearts

History

Łukasz Gołębiowski in his 1831 book Gry i zabawy ("Games and Fun") recounts the traditional - Renaissance - card names and the gameplay: it was played by 4 people with an Old Polish pack of 36 cards (9 cards in each suit). The player who had three left, did not lose, who more won so much. The highest cards in Chapanka were appropriately named:

• 8 - Dolą ("Mad One")
• 6 or 8 - Gółką ("Bare Bum", "Semibreve", "Whole Note")
• 6 - Pancerolą ("Armour", "Knight")
• O - Panfil ("Pamphile", "Ober")
• U - Kinal ("Unter")
• 9 - Mogączką ("Bulb")
• 9 - Ryndzią ("Yard")

Ignacy Krasicki mentioned Chapanka in the fairy tale "Matedory" - which mentions the different cards:

 
     Whenever Chapanka was played between carters,
     He beat the Jack of Hearts with the Knight, Kings and Obers,
     The Chapanka finished, another game started -
     With that Knight, merely the Six of Leaves.
     The sadder the end was, the nicer the beginning was:
     He beat the Kings, and the Nines beat him.

Polish Snap

Below we present the modern rules of this game.

Players

For 2 or more players.

Cards

A standard, 52-card, French-suited pack is used for 2-4 people. Two packs should be used decks if there are more players.

Rules

The aim of the game is to capture all the cards.

The dealer shuffles the pack and deals the cards to each player one at a time and in clockwise order. Players, without looking at the cards, place them in a pile, face down. The dealer starts the game by turning the top card and placing it face up next to his face down pile. The next players do likewise by placing one card in a queue. A player who, at any time during the game, notices two cards of the same rank shouts "Chap!" The player who first cries "Chap" takes all the face-up piles that have equal-ranking cards (at least two) and puts them in his own pile. The game passes to the person on the left of the one who collected the cards. If someone has run out of face down cards - he turns his face up pile and keep playing until his cards run out.

Pool

If two people shout "Chap!" at the same time, then both stacks go to the middle of the table as a 'pool' (pula). When a player reveals a card identical to the one on the top of the pool - he shouts "Chap the pool!" ("chap pula!") and takes all the cards in the pool.

Penalties

Penalties are agreed by the players beforehand. The penalties are for shouting "Chap!" at the wrong time and can be in the form of:

1. giving one card to each of the other players
2. the player's face-up pile becomes the pool

The last player left with the cards wins the game.

Variants

Chapanka Race

In Chapanka Race all the players simultaneously reveal one card at a time, instead of taking turns.

Old Polish Chapanka or Polish Whist

Old Polish Chapanka is a game for 4 people with a 52-card pack. Players determine the number of points scored. The scoring scheme is decided at the beginning of the game. A suggested scheme is:

Players who collect 3 tricks or fewer lose and get negative points:

• no tricks = -5 points
• Left 1 = - 3 points
• Left 2 = - 2 points
• Left 3 = - 1 point

The player who collects the 4th left scores zero points.

Players collecting more than 4 tricks, win, and may get a bonus for a slam - collecting all tricks:

• 5 tricks = + 1
• 6 tricks = + 2
• 7 tricks = + 3
• 8 tricks = + 4
• 9 tricks = + 5
• 10 tricks = + 10
• 11 tricks = + 11
• 12 tricks = + 12
• 13 tricks = + 13

Chapanka at Polish Wikibooks

Kierki, Old Polish Chapanka or Polish Hearts

Also described as Chapanka in Old Polish - see pl:Kierki.

Bibliography

• Gołębiowski,Łukasz (1831). Gry i zabawy różnych stanów w kraju całym, lub niektórych tylko prowincyach. Warsaw.
• Gracz, Wytrawny ["Consummate Player"] (1930). Gry w karty. Polskie i obce. Nowego Wydawnictwa, Warsaw, reprinted 2012.