Mus (card game)

Mus

Four friends playing mus in a basque txoko.
Origin	Basque country
Type	Comparing
Players	4
Skills required	Attention
Cards	40
Deck	Spanish
Play	Counter-clockwise
Card rank (highest to lowest)	(K or 3) Q J 7 6 5 4 (2 or A)
Playing time	20 min.
Random chance	Low

Mus is a card game widely played in Spain and Hispanic America, and to a lesser extent in France. Most probably originated in the Basque Country, it is a vying game. The first reference about this game goes back to 1745, when Manuel Larramendi, philologist and Jesuit Basque, quoted it the trilingual dictionary (Basque-Spanish-Latin).

In Spain it is the most played card game, spawning several Mus clubs or "peñas" and becoming a staple game among college students. It is not uncommon to hear the Basque terms, such as "órdago" (from Basque "hor dago", "there it is") used by Spanish speakers, often without them being aware of the literal meanings of the terms and phrases.

The origin of the word Mus is uncertain. It could come from the Basque language, where "musu" means "kiss", the established signal of the better possible card combination (3 Kings and one Ace). Larramendi wrote about the word mus or "musu" meaning lips or face and suggests that the name of the game could have derived from the facial gestures used while playing.

Following another theory, the word mus comes from the Latin "musso", that means "keep silent". It is conjugated as "mus" ("I keep silent"), in opposition to "talk", that is the word used to open the game.

According to a third hypothesis the word could come from the French word "mouche" ("fly"), from Latin mussula, although the concept "fly" has no relation with any part of the game.

Basque emigrants carried the game to other countries such as the USA and Australia, where it is played in Basque clubs. Nowadays there is an international Mus tournament, in addition to many national and regional competitions.

The game is played between two opposing pairs of players with the Spanish deck which is a deck of 40 cards, without eights, nines, or tens and no jokers, and it has a variety of different rules in the different regions of Spain. The game has four rounds: