Talk:Piquet

Really?

"Piquet is widely regarded as the best card game for two players" -- how can something be widely regarded as the best card game for two players when I haven't heard of it before? --Larry Sanger 18:52, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps this is what Wikipedia calls "weasel words". (Do we use that terminology?) The statement was taken directly from Parlett's Oxford Guide to Card Games (which is also the main source for my card games article). Another book (which I can't identify from memory) says it's generally regarded as such by connoisseurs. Many (British) books on card games say it's the best. Other sources say it's essentially unknown in America (see also Hayford's edit summary). Perhaps an accurate statement would be that it's generally so regarded by connoisseurs in Britain & France. I'm rather vague on our verifiability policy (if any). Peter Jackson 10:54, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

I believe the problem is that people stopped playing it in the early 20th century, as various games for 3 or 4 players became more popular. I think I read in Parlett about a temporal coincidence with World War I, and I guess that that is where the new national games (Skat in Germany, Belote in France, Klaverjas in the Netherlands; all played with a piquet pack) established themselves. With so many men concentrated in a small area, it would have been strange to play a two-player game. Also, the rules of Piquet were quite complicated and not well standardised. Some of them only make sense if you know what the game was like several centuries earlier. I guess this kind of game can only survive in first position. Hans Adler 09:59, 15 December 2009 (UTC)