Abstract
The card game Truco, popular in Argentina and Uruguay, originates in Spain, specifically in Catalonia and Valencia. Some authors, with considerable imagination, have proposed legends of a more remote origin linked to Muslims, perhaps because the four-suited playing cards, which entered Europe from the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt (1250-1517), may have derived from a trick-taking game with a peculiar card hierarchy similar to that of Truco.
During the 16th and 17th centuries in Spain, various card games emerged. Some, like Flor, were predominantly games of chance and associated with betting; others, like Truc or Truque, were trick-taking and more social, prioritizing intuition and strategy over luck. From the times of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata up to the 19th century, a card game developed and became popular in these lands, combining the strategy of Truque and the chance of Flor: Truquiflor. The South American gauchos expressed, through this game, their character and temperament, transforming it into a dialectical game, full of sayings and verses. Truco, which today is played with or without the flor, optimally embodies certain traits of the criollo character—most notably, an irreverence in the face of objective and indisputable adversity, capable of “scaring the devil himself.”