Talk:Preferans

History
According to Card games by David Parlett (ISBN 0340592044) - Published by Hodder & Stoughton. This game is mentioned in a German book dated 1802, although he fails to give a title or any other details, perhaps the game is older than mentioned in the article. --Hellahulla 00:17, 28 May 2006 (UTC)


 * The German language version of the article says the game originated in the Austro-Hungarian empire in the late 18th century. Whether it's 1802 as you quote, or the late 1700's as the German version of article claims, it's clear that 1840 and Russian orgins seem very late by comparison. --Trweiss (talk) 03:37, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Rostov
More info needed on Rostov scoring, especially pool calculation --Hexonut 16:58, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Split
Balkan Preference should be split from this page, since it is completely different (features a six tricks requirement, less advanced betting, scoring methods less suited for money play). PokitJaxx (talk) 18:50, 19 October 2009 (UTC) Krenakarore (talk) 19:48, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
 * We would, if it were there. Trešeta needs some refs (I've been to Split once !), even if in Croatian.
 * I'll try to write something about these games tomorrow. PokitJaxx (talk) 19:52, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

I think we should treat the Balkan version simply as yet another scoring system, like Leningrad, Sochi, and Rostov. While some rules are streamlined, I find it in no way less suitable for playing for money. Personally I think it has the similar atmosphere, proverbs and wittiness as the Russian version. When I have time I will write the rules for Balkan version. Respectfully, Tzuppy (talk) 03:39, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Major changes
Some comments concerning my recent changes and previous comments on this talk page. I have rewritten the article almost completely, but I am still in the process of improving it further. It is likely that I will add descriptions of additional historical or regional variants that are closely related to the modern Russian game.

While it is perhaps not completely decided whether the Preference family of closely related games originated in Austria, in Russia, or elsewhere, there are good reasons to believe it first flourished in Vienna around 1800 and then spread east and south from there. For the history see Préférence. In any case, David Parlett describes it as an originally Austrian game. Initially he believed that it was first described in an Austrian game anthology in 1802, but this was based on erroneous information from Michael Dummett. A game of the same name was mentioned as popular in Vienna for 1802 or 1803. This may have been a different game, but given that the first description was in a game anthology that appeared in Vienna in 1829 and the game was only reported from Russia a decade or so later, the most likely explanation is that the 1802/03 Vienna game was a precursor of Austrian Preference, if not the game itself.

The Hungarian and West Balkans (i.e. ex-Yugoslavia) variants of Preference are very similar to the Austrian variant and quite different from the Russian and Greek variants. This is why I split them off into the new article Préférence. They are also significantly easier to understand, and any attempt to describe them along with the Russian form of the game would be a disservice to readers unfamiliar with the game.

A bit of original research here that I can't put into the article: The misère bid has a name of French origin in Russian Preferans, but a name of German origin in Austrian, Hungarian and West Balkans Preference. To me this suggests that the game started as a folk game in the latter region and found its way into Russia via diplomats, possibly in connection with the Congress of Vienna. The basic structure – 3 players, 32 cards, a talon of 2 cards, bidding – is shared by a number of games that arose in Central Europe around that time: Mariáš/Ulti (not sure about the timing in this case), Skat and its precursor Wendish Schafkopf, somewhat later also Réunion. Therefore Austria-Hungary seems to be the best bet for its region of origin.

The huge section with Preferans sayings (Russian and Serbian) didn't really fit into the article and was completely unsourced, so I removed it. It can of course still be found in the article history. There is also an even longer section of this kind in the Russian version of the article. In principle such material has merit, but ideally it should be provided with sources (usually a problem, unfortunately) and it should have some reasonable structure (as opposed to a long list). I also doubt that the English Wikipedia is a good place for collecting Russian and Serbian sayings. Hans Adler 16:13, 20 May 2011 (UTC)