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It came up in some discussions today about an old card game called "Svick" that was played about 35 years ago. We can't really remember how this game was played, or all the rules to it, so I took on the job of trying to find out more about it. Unfortunately, Google cannot find anything (And autocorrects it to "Stick") beside a single reference of the game. We are unsure if the game is a Czech game, or from somewhere else.

Here it is: https://www.tributearchive.com/obituaries/19962741/Donald-Donnie-Klanecky https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/theindependent/name/donald-klanecky-obituary?pid=197769817

If anyone knows of the game, would they be able to provide information, or even a webpage about it?

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    Any additional details would be help. For example, is it played with a 52-card deck? If there are details in the link, please edit your question to include any important quotations.
    – ryanyuyu
    Jun 27, 2021 at 21:18
  • I haven't been able to find anything more than corroboration that it is actually a game... montanaroue.com/2017/11/oh-games-people-play.html?m=1
    – LeppyR64
    Jun 28, 2021 at 11:28

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My family is Czech and from El Campo and Shiner, TX. My grandpa played Svick and my aunts, uncles and cousins still play weekly. It's really fun but seems to be sort of a "dead game" as there's no real information on it online. It's been years since I've played but I reached out and was given the rules for you all. As far as I know, my family is the only family that still actively plays this game so I would love to hear if someone else out there plays it still. I don't know anyone else who's played or has even heard of this game and was surprised to find this thread. It's a fun game and many people can play at once. It seems like the optimum number of people is around 4-6 but I think up to 8 or even 10 can play. There are a lot of rules so this will be pretty long but I don't know of ANYONE who still plays this game so it's nice to have it preserved somewhere online.

I looked at the rules for Zwikken and Svick is a completely different game.

For those of you who don't play card games with trumps and tricks (ie. games like Spades or Hearts etc). A trump is a suit that beats all other suits but unlike Spades or Hearts it can be any suit turned over by the dealer in Svick. You can only use a trump if you can't follow suit. Example: Diamonds are turned over as the trump.. Hearts are led, if you don't have a heart you can trump with a diamond (a 2 of diamonds would beat the ace of hearts in this situation) and the highest trump played (if more than one) would win the trick. If no one trumps the highest heart would win the trick in this example. A trick is the round played... so if 5 people are playing they all play their first round of cards, 1 card each, in the middle and whoever wins the round, takes the cards and keeps them. That's a trick and there are four tricks to be had per hand in Svick. At the end you count up who has how many tricks for dividing up the pot. Also, in this game Ace is high.. so Ace, Joker, King, Queen, Jack, 10 through 2. (the joker is always a trump and only one joker is in the deck)

The Deal: First everyone antes up (.20 cents always makes it even). You are dealt four cards (so there are four tricks) so depending on what you ante, the dealer has to add the extra few cents to make it divisible by 4. For example if there are 5 playing and everyone antes .15 cents that's .75 so the dealer puts in a penny to make it .76 and the pot is now .19 cents a trick. You could also make the ante .19 or .07 cents to keep it even. (That's the money aspect.. divisible by 4). You could also play for chips but we always played for change. It's more fun to see actual money on the table, imo.

Knocking in or folding: 4 cards are dealt to each player then the dealer flips a card which designates the trump (spades, clubs, diamonds, hearts). The dealer can choose to keep the turned trump by knocking on it WITHOUT looking at his hand first. 10 and below he only has to make one trick, Jack and above he has to make 2 tricks or he goes 'set'. Then each player, after looking at their cards, decides if they will 'go' (play) by knocking on the table (in order, to the left from the dealer). Those who knock and are 'in' discard all cards that are not trumps in their hand and the dealer gives them replacements. (1,2 or 3 cards.. if you don't have a trump you would fold and not knock... unless you like losing money) :) You don't bid, you just ante, then knock or fold. When it gets back around to the dealer, he picks up the overturned trump (if he knocked on it) looks at his cards and makes his discards and deals himself replacements. If the dealer doesn't knock on the trump card he can look at his cards and knock in at the end of the round but can't pick up the trump card. Also, if the dealer knocks on and picks up the trump card the dealer leads the first round of play, if the dealer doesn't pick up the trump card the first person to his left that knocked begins the round of play. If no players knock (want to play their hand), the dealer cannot knock at the end.. that's the end of the round and the dealer adds 4 pennies and deals again. Once everyone has knocked or folded and has their four cards play begins...

Play: The dealer plays first and can lead trumps if he wants (ie. the ace if he has it). If you don't have a card to match the suit that is lead you must trump it, if you don't have any trumps you can discard anything. Whoever wins that trick plays first on the next round. When all tricks have been won, play is over and the pot is divided between those who won tricks. (two tricks you get half the pot... 1/4 for one trick and obviously this is why the pot must be divisible by four). Then everyone antes for the next round or if one or more went set they pay their fines and the new dealer puts in four pennies and no one else has to ante. The new dealer must put in four pennies even if they paid a fine for going set.

Going set and fines: If you knock into the hand you must make at least one trick or you go 'set' and have to match the whole pot (the fine) on the next round (and no one has to ante in and gets a free round if there's a fine). More than one person can go set and all people who are set must pay the fine. (so three people go set, the pot gets matched 3 times). If you are the dealer and knocked on the trump card lower than 10 (1 trick) and go 'set' you have to match the whole pot on the next round. If the dealer knocks on a face card, joker or ace, he needs to make 2 tricks or he goes 'set' and has to pay DOUBLE the pot on the next round. (everyone with me so far? haha!) OH and if the dealer knocks on a face card, joker or ace, he has the choice after looking at his cards to fold if he would like... but he has to pay the fine on the next round (which is better than matching double the pot if he doesn't make 2 tricks). Like I said before, if there is a fine, the next dealer always has to add 4 cents. Even if the dealer payed the fine. The next dealer is always the person to the left of the last dealer.

This matching the pot thing is where the pot can really grow. 5 people playing at .20 cents each the pot is $1 but if you have 2 people go set and one is the dealer who knocked on a face card the next pot is $3. Then say, two more go set on that round.. now the pot is $6). Small money but the money is what makes it fun and if it's a $6 dollar pot.. you really think hard before you knock to play!

Clear as mud right? Have fun!

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    Now that I checked Czech card games with similar names again, there is a card game called Cvik in Czech that has very similar (if not the same rules), so that's most likely what this is. Oct 30, 2021 at 18:35
  • OMG! Thanks so much! I will show this to my family later and see if it seams right. @TheRedFox, I’ll look into that as well. Thanks! Oct 31, 2021 at 1:58
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A shot in the dark, but there's a Dutch card game, which is pronounced similarly, called zwikken. It's a trick-taking game with a betting element. Here is a machine translation of the rules. If it's definitely the game you're looking for (or close), I can do a manual translation and add it to English Wikipedia. For what it's worth, I've never played the game myself, but I friend of mine did, and he would be able to elaborate the rules.

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I'm a native Czech speaker and I quite like card games, but I can't say I ever heard of a card game called "Svick". I also can't find anything on Czech sites about it either.

I would assume that most likely the name was slightly corrupted over time due to the person and their family living in the US and presumably having limited contact with native Czech speakers. That can and has happened. E.g. see kolache, which is a Czech plural turned English singular from the Czech word koláče.

If we go with that assumption, then I think the two most likely candidates are the card games Švindl and Svršky. Both of them start with "Sv" and have only one more character than "Svick" has.

Another possibility is Cvik, which sounds somewhat similar to "Svick" and has similar ruleset to what cmvox is explaining in his answer. So that's the most likely candidate. The rules of the game (in Czech) can be found at https://cs.wikibooks.org/wiki/Pokladnice_her/Klasick%C3%A9_karetn%C3%AD_hry/Cvik.

But ultimately, it's hard to tell which one of the two it is or if it's a completely different card game without knowing anything about the card game other than a name that doesn't give any results on Google.

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    This really doesn't answer the question.
    – Zeiss Ikon
    Oct 29, 2021 at 16:17
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    I think I see the answer here, but I suggest that you edit your answer to emphasize your guesses of Švindl and Svršky and providing gameplay reasons you think they might match.
    – ryanyuyu
    Oct 29, 2021 at 19:11
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    It's not a full answer, but it's an honest attempt at providing useful information.
    – Pat Ludwig
    Oct 30, 2021 at 4:13
  • @ryanyuyu how am I supposed to provide gameplay reasons for why I think they should match when the original question has nothing about gameplay? The only lead is the name, so of course that's what I use to find a game they are looking for. Oct 30, 2021 at 18:08
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We play Svick regularly in Minnesota. I'm from New Prague, so it is only fitting that a small town in MN named after the Czech Capital, hold a ton of Czech traditions. Our version of Svick is played with 3 cards. We play 30 Cent Ante for the players and 60 Cents for the dealer. 6 -7 players is the optimal game size. At 6 players you have a pot of $2.10 for 70 cents a trick. 7 players is a pot of $2.40. Since we play with 3 cards, Queen and above if robbing for 2 tricks for the dealer. Jack and below is for 1 trick.

Regardless of what the dealer does, play always begins with the person to the left of the dealer. The game is played in the same fashion of Euchre for the most part. the biggest rule that we play by is that the Ace of Trump must come out if you are the first to lead. At all times you are looking to Set the dealer or someone in order to make the pot grow. If 4 people knock...you know someone is getting set in our 3 card version. Get set, pay the pot. Rob for double as a dealer and you have 2 options. 1) play the hand and pay double the pot if you don't get 2 tricks, or 2) you can "slide" after seeing your hand. This means you don't think you can get 2 tricks and then you get off easy and only pay what the pot size is. Then the remaining players are playing "easy" to try and allow everyone left in the hand to obtain a trick since the dealer is already set. We have set a max set limit of $12 for a set on non dealers and if the dealer "slides". $24 if the dealer robs for double, plays and still doesn't get 2 tricks. We had to institute this as pots often grew to over $100. Which was very pricey for a family game.

When I was younger, my father and his friends would play $1.50/$3.00 for the Ante. So in a 7 player game, the "normal" pot was $12 for $4 a trick. Serious cash would change hands on those nights if you ran into a string of bad luck.

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    This answer is hard to understand and follow, can you please remove the commentary about your history playing and just leave the rules?
    – Joe W
    Oct 24, 2022 at 15:41

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