> The title refers to a card game which is unlike those known to English and American cardplayers, though it combines features from rummy, from pinochle, from poker, and from bidding games. Bridge might be thought of as an "exponentiation," though a quieter one, apparently, of truco. Truco players do, in actuality, sing elaborate extemporized songs when they win. The Spanish deck, of forty rather than fifty-two cards, with its more realistic and charming pictures and suits, and its obvious affinity with the mystical Tarot deck, here furnishes Borges with the numerology, the charm and mysteries, the sense of autochthony and deep history, of mingled destiny and magic control, and the sense of the wonderful and frightening "other" world which he uses to produce the effect called "Borgesian." The last sentence might surely be a touchstone for Borges' entire corpus: truco is serious trifling indeed. [Note by Andrew Hurley.]
> For Borges, the truco (like chess) is a symbol of the cyclical nature of reality. The number of combinations being limited, any game of truco potentially contains all games, and any player all the players. Borges included a poem on the same subject in Fe.
More from Borges on truco in this interview from 1984 (translated):
> You know, people play chess for nothing, usually. I mean, they don’t play for money. Like in truco, for example. But in poker, yes, you play for hard cash, don’t you? — Yes. — Hard cash, yes. But not truco, no. The proof of this is that no one says, “I won so much at truco.” People say, “I beat So-and-So.”
Just to correct Borges: Truco is played with a Spanish deck of cards (comes with 50 in the deck including 2 jokers) but with the 8s and 9s removed so that 10 is 8, 11 is 9 and 12 is 10. This makes the face cards match the italian deck (although the numbers are different).
Ariel Arbiser was a teacher of mine at college, quite an interesting character! Very knowledgeable about compilers too. And yes, I did play his version of Truco in the previous century/millennia.
I remember Truco Arbiser. Great program, the Arbisers did a major feat of programming with very limited available hardware and software resources.
I played their PC version, which had CGA graphics, beep tone music, but the game was very well implemented. The computer player AI was somewhat predictable after some time; but again, it would mirror what another truco player would do rather well, so that wasn't much of a problem.
Looking into the executable, it seemed that the PC version was implemented as a BASIC program which was then compiled or perhaps, just obfuscated. This makes it even more amazing, IMHO.
> Early-morning listeners could record the audio to cassette and then load it into their computers, effectively downloading games through their radio.
I would love to listen to such an audio-feed to see how it is. I suppose it sounds like 1990s dial-up modems when they were establishing a connection?
Separately, interesting to know about truco! I grew up in Minas Gerais, Brazil where our version of truco is widely played and beloved by most. Actually my very first memory is my grandfather teaching me that 4 of Clubs is the highest card, followed by 7 of Hearts, and so on…
With such heavy involvement on the hardware side I'm surprised the government didn't crack down on piracy. Especially since it could create social norms to hurt the local industry.
Serendipitously I just earlier today read Jorge Luis Borges' "Truco" (1955):
https://archive.org/details/borgesreader00jorg/page/258 https://archive.org/details/borgesreader00jorg/page/358
> The title refers to a card game which is unlike those known to English and American cardplayers, though it combines features from rummy, from pinochle, from poker, and from bidding games. Bridge might be thought of as an "exponentiation," though a quieter one, apparently, of truco. Truco players do, in actuality, sing elaborate extemporized songs when they win. The Spanish deck, of forty rather than fifty-two cards, with its more realistic and charming pictures and suits, and its obvious affinity with the mystical Tarot deck, here furnishes Borges with the numerology, the charm and mysteries, the sense of autochthony and deep history, of mingled destiny and magic control, and the sense of the wonderful and frightening "other" world which he uses to produce the effect called "Borgesian." The last sentence might surely be a touchstone for Borges' entire corpus: truco is serious trifling indeed. [Note by Andrew Hurley.]
> For Borges, the truco (like chess) is a symbol of the cyclical nature of reality. The number of combinations being limited, any game of truco potentially contains all games, and any player all the players. Borges included a poem on the same subject in Fe.
More from Borges on truco in this interview from 1984 (translated):
https://thecollidescope.com/2023/07/15/through-caverns-measu...
> You know, people play chess for nothing, usually. I mean, they don’t play for money. Like in truco, for example. But in poker, yes, you play for hard cash, don’t you? — Yes. — Hard cash, yes. But not truco, no. The proof of this is that no one says, “I won so much at truco.” People say, “I beat So-and-So.”
In case you are curious, the sci-fi series “El Eternauta” (released this year on Netflix) has a few scenes of people playing truco.
I'm still thinking on how to translate "esta relampajeando" to english, lol.
Just to correct Borges: Truco is played with a Spanish deck of cards (comes with 50 in the deck including 2 jokers) but with the 8s and 9s removed so that 10 is 8, 11 is 9 and 12 is 10. This makes the face cards match the italian deck (although the numbers are different).
Where are you "correcting" Borges on Truco? What mistake did you find in the interview?
Ariel Arbiser was a teacher of mine at college, quite an interesting character! Very knowledgeable about compilers too. And yes, I did play his version of Truco in the previous century/millennia.
Truco is such a great game <3
A teacher of mine at university :)
And yes, quite a "character".
I remember Truco Arbiser. Great program, the Arbisers did a major feat of programming with very limited available hardware and software resources.
I played their PC version, which had CGA graphics, beep tone music, but the game was very well implemented. The computer player AI was somewhat predictable after some time; but again, it would mirror what another truco player would do rather well, so that wasn't much of a problem.
Looking into the executable, it seemed that the PC version was implemented as a BASIC program which was then compiled or perhaps, just obfuscated. This makes it even more amazing, IMHO.
> Early-morning listeners could record the audio to cassette and then load it into their computers, effectively downloading games through their radio.
I would love to listen to such an audio-feed to see how it is. I suppose it sounds like 1990s dial-up modems when they were establishing a connection?
Separately, interesting to know about truco! I grew up in Minas Gerais, Brazil where our version of truco is widely played and beloved by most. Actually my very first memory is my grandfather teaching me that 4 of Clubs is the highest card, followed by 7 of Hearts, and so on…
I shared the article with my Brother in Law (my better half is argentinean), he sent me this:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DDUzqoRC1eZ/?igsh=aWpwbGJ1Znd...
With such heavy involvement on the hardware side I'm surprised the government didn't crack down on piracy. Especially since it could create social norms to hurt the local industry.