Community hub
Recent from talks
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
Conquian
Conquian, Coon Can or Colonel (the two-handed version) is a rummy-style card game. David Parlett describes it as an ancestor to all modern rummy games, and a kind of proto-gin rummy. Before the appearance of gin rummy, it was described as "an excellent game for two players, quite different from any other in its principles and requiring very close attention and a good memory to play it well".
The game originated in Mexico in the mid-1800s. Court records published in 1861 suggest that Conquian was well established there in the 1850s, and this is reinforced by an 1857 account of life in Mexico City. Later, it is recorded in the 1880s in Mexico being played alongside Tuti, Malilla de Campo, Mus and Rentoy. It continued to be popular into the early 20th century, Mexican politician and military leader, Gonzalo Santos, recalling that "before the Revolution [1910–1920] we had a good life. We lived out there in Tampamolón and did nothing other than play Conquián or domino in the bars..."
By 1852 it was still there, but New Mexico was now part of the United States, so that conquian was included in a list of examples of pastimes that were legally permitted as a "game of recreation".
Card game expert Robert F. Foster traced Conquian back to the early 1860s., though giving no evidence for such an early date. According to him, even in the US the game was originally played by two players with a Spanish pack of 40 cards from which the 8s, 9s and 10s were missing. He claims that, in 1873, he was the first to propose that the Kings, Queens and Jacks should be removed, leaving a natural sequence of 10 cards in each suit.
The earliest rules are supposed to appear in a lost book published around 1871, called Game of Rum (Coon Can), but no copy of this book has ever been found. The earliest so far description of the game appeared in 1887, under the name Coon Can, in The Standard Hoyle: The modern authority on games. A complete guide and reliable authority upon all games of chance or skill now played in the United States (New York : Excelsior, 1887), p. 480-481. It was later described in more detail in R.F. Foster Foster's Hoyle of 1897, where it was said to be "a great favorite in Mexico and in all the American states bordering upon it, especially Texas". By 1900, the game had spread to the eastern US and, around 1908, three- and four-player versions initially under the name of Rum emerged which used a full 52-card pack. By 1912, it had reached England, a variant with 2 packs and 2 Jokers and called Coon Can being popularised by the Bath Club in London.
The name is thought to derive from con quién – Spanish "with whom". It is sometimes corrupted to Coon Can, Cooncan, Conquain, Councan, Conca and Cuncá, a South American variation of the game. In 19th-century Mexican literature the word is spelled cunquián or conquián, but legal publications in New Mexico, in both Spanish and English, record it as conquian and Wood and Goddard state that the game was named after the Spanish "¿con quién?" - "with whom?" referring to the melding of cards. But this lacks support, since no Mexican author has ever mentioned such a hypothesis. On the contrary, they often write conquián in italics, as if it were a "foreign" word. It is more likely to have come from the Philippines, where a card game called kongkian, akin to panguingue, sounds like conquian and has similar rules…
The aim is to be the first to get rid of the cards, including the last one drawn, by melding sets and runs. The total number of cards melded must be 11 at the end.
Conquian is played by two or more players with Spanish playing cards or a 40-card pack of French playing cards either by removing the courts or by removing the 8s, 9s and 10s. The two-player game is sometimes called Colonel to distinguish it (see below).
Hub AI
Conquian AI simulator
(@Conquian_simulator)
Conquian
Conquian, Coon Can or Colonel (the two-handed version) is a rummy-style card game. David Parlett describes it as an ancestor to all modern rummy games, and a kind of proto-gin rummy. Before the appearance of gin rummy, it was described as "an excellent game for two players, quite different from any other in its principles and requiring very close attention and a good memory to play it well".
The game originated in Mexico in the mid-1800s. Court records published in 1861 suggest that Conquian was well established there in the 1850s, and this is reinforced by an 1857 account of life in Mexico City. Later, it is recorded in the 1880s in Mexico being played alongside Tuti, Malilla de Campo, Mus and Rentoy. It continued to be popular into the early 20th century, Mexican politician and military leader, Gonzalo Santos, recalling that "before the Revolution [1910–1920] we had a good life. We lived out there in Tampamolón and did nothing other than play Conquián or domino in the bars..."
By 1852 it was still there, but New Mexico was now part of the United States, so that conquian was included in a list of examples of pastimes that were legally permitted as a "game of recreation".
Card game expert Robert F. Foster traced Conquian back to the early 1860s., though giving no evidence for such an early date. According to him, even in the US the game was originally played by two players with a Spanish pack of 40 cards from which the 8s, 9s and 10s were missing. He claims that, in 1873, he was the first to propose that the Kings, Queens and Jacks should be removed, leaving a natural sequence of 10 cards in each suit.
The earliest rules are supposed to appear in a lost book published around 1871, called Game of Rum (Coon Can), but no copy of this book has ever been found. The earliest so far description of the game appeared in 1887, under the name Coon Can, in The Standard Hoyle: The modern authority on games. A complete guide and reliable authority upon all games of chance or skill now played in the United States (New York : Excelsior, 1887), p. 480-481. It was later described in more detail in R.F. Foster Foster's Hoyle of 1897, where it was said to be "a great favorite in Mexico and in all the American states bordering upon it, especially Texas". By 1900, the game had spread to the eastern US and, around 1908, three- and four-player versions initially under the name of Rum emerged which used a full 52-card pack. By 1912, it had reached England, a variant with 2 packs and 2 Jokers and called Coon Can being popularised by the Bath Club in London.
The name is thought to derive from con quién – Spanish "with whom". It is sometimes corrupted to Coon Can, Cooncan, Conquain, Councan, Conca and Cuncá, a South American variation of the game. In 19th-century Mexican literature the word is spelled cunquián or conquián, but legal publications in New Mexico, in both Spanish and English, record it as conquian and Wood and Goddard state that the game was named after the Spanish "¿con quién?" - "with whom?" referring to the melding of cards. But this lacks support, since no Mexican author has ever mentioned such a hypothesis. On the contrary, they often write conquián in italics, as if it were a "foreign" word. It is more likely to have come from the Philippines, where a card game called kongkian, akin to panguingue, sounds like conquian and has similar rules…
The aim is to be the first to get rid of the cards, including the last one drawn, by melding sets and runs. The total number of cards melded must be 11 at the end.
Conquian is played by two or more players with Spanish playing cards or a 40-card pack of French playing cards either by removing the courts or by removing the 8s, 9s and 10s. The two-player game is sometimes called Colonel to distinguish it (see below).