Tarot Poker Rules

Tarot Poker is a fun version of five-card draw poker using a deck of tarot cards rather than the standard 52-card deck. The game is great fun to play, but does require a bit of learning to get all the rules down.

Any version of a standard 78-card tarot or tarock pack, consisting of four suits of 14 ranks each (i.e. the "minor arcana") and 22 "major arcana". Although thsee rules use the suits and major arcana as presented in the Rider-Waite and Tarot de Marseille decks, any tarot or tarock deck utilizing this general form will work.
A set of poker chips

In addition to the normal set of 52 cards that you'd find in a normal poker game, Tarot Poker uses an additional 26 cards known as trumps.

For the purposes of Tarot Poker, the set of trumps consists of the 22 "major arcana" PLUS the four suited Knights. The Knights are not considered part of the suit, leaving only 13 cards per suit.

The trumps have an array of different values:

Fifth suit - Trumps 1-13 make up a fifth suit, called Trumps, with the values of Ace of Trumps through King of Trumps accordingly.
Bugs - Trumps 17, 18, 19, and 21 are bugs. A bug can be used to complete any flush, rainbow, or straight and becomes the highest card that can complete that hand. However, unlike regular poker bugs, if the card can not be used to complete a flush, rainbow, or straight, it has no value (null).
Nulls - All other trump cards (0, 14-16, 20, and the Knights) are worth null, meaning they have no value and can not be used to complete any hand. In breaking ties, they are considered less than a deuce.
Variable values - In two special cases, Trumps 6 (The Lovers) and 9 (The Hermit) may be wild. In these cases, they are true wild cards and can help complete any hand. (See 'Value cards' below.)

In addition to their various face values, all trump cards have special abilities. These abilities fall into one of six types:

Bet cards affect how their holder can bet
Action cards allow players to do special actions
Attack cards force other players to do something
Defense cards are used to counteract attacks
Shield cards can be played to prevent certain attacks and actions
Value cards take on different values under different conditions

Because Tarot Poker is a five-suited game, the order of the poker hands are different. Specficially, a flush ranks higher than a full house and there two new hands:

Five-of-a-kind - 5 cards of the same rank
Straight flush - 5 cards in order and suited
Four-of-a-kind - 4 cards of the same rank
Flush - 5 cards of the same suit
Full house - A pair and a three-of-a-kind
Straight - 5 cards in order, unsuited
Three-of-a-kind - 3 cards of the same rank
Rainbow - 5 cards, each of a different suit
Two pair - 2 sets of 2 cards of the same rank
Pair - 2 cards of the same rank
High Card - Unsuited and unordered hand with no pairs

The text of these rules are released under the Creative Commons BY license. This means as long as you attribute me (M. Long) and this website, you can do anything you like with the text of the rules. Period.