Preferans

Preferans

Préférence, a painting by Viktor Vasnetsov
Origin	Russia
Alternative names	Prefa
Family	Trick-taking
Players	2, 3 or 4
Cards	32
Deck	French
Play	Clockwise
Related games
Ombre • Whist • Préférence • Wallachen

Preferans (Russian: преферанс, IPA: [prʲɪfʲɪˈrans]) or Russian Preference is a 10-card plain-trick game with bidding, played by three or four players with a 32-card Piquet deck. It is a sophisticated variant of the Austrian game Préférence, which in turn descends from Spanish Ombre and French Boston. It is renowned in the card game world for its many complicated rules and insistence on strategical approaches.

Popular in Russia since approximately the 1830s, Preferans quickly became the country's national card game. Although superseded in this role by Durak, it is still one of the most popular games in Russia. Similar games are played in various other European countries, from Lithuania to Greece, where an earlier form of Russian Preferans is known as Prefa (Greek: Πρέφα). Compared to Austrian Préférence, Russian Preferans and Greek Prefa are distinguished by the greater number of possible contracts, which allows for almost any combination of trumps and numbers of tricks. Another distinguishing feature is the relatively independent roles played by the opponents of the soloist.