Bezique (1860)

A trick taking card game in which players score for winning aces and 10s in tricks, and for forming certain combinations of cards from tricks won and cards in hand. Point-scoring combinations include four of a kind (aces, kings, queens and jacks only), a marriage (king and queen of same suit), sequence (A-10 of trump) or a Bezique (queen of spades and jack of diamonds). Bezique uses a subset of the standard playing cards, composed of the seven through Ace taken from two decks (i.e. the deck contains no deuces through sixes, with all other cards appearing twice). A game of Bezique goes through three distinct stages or "phases" of play, and is somewhat reminiscent of cribbage and canasta. Bezique is the ancestor of Pinochle, and that game's two-handed version is very similar to Bezique but with slightly different deck and slightly different scoring. (The origin date listed for this game is approximate.)