Preferans (Russian: преферанс) is an Eastern European 10-card plain-trick game with bidding, played by three players with a 32-card Piquet deck. It is a sophisticated variant of the Austrian game Préférence, which in turn descends from Spanish Ombre and French Boston.
Popular in Russia since approximately the 1830s, Preferans quickly became the country's national card game. Although superseded in this role by Durak, it is still one of the most popular games in Russia. Similar games are played in Eastern Europe from Lithuania to Greece, where an earlier form of Russian Preferans is known as Prefa (Greek: Πρέφα). Compared to Austrian Préférence, Russian Preferans and Greek Prefa are distinguished by the greater number of possible contracts, which allows for almost arbitrary combinations of trumps and numbers of tricks. Another distinguishing feature is the relatively independent roles played by the opponents of the soloist.
Preferans is played by three active players with a French-suited 32-card piquet deck. Aces rank high and tens rank in their natural position between jacks and nines. As happens with many three-player trick-taking games, the game is frequently played by four using the convention that in each hand the dealer pauses. Each active player receives 10 cards in batches of 2. The remaining 2 cards form a talon that will be used by the declarer to improve his or her hand. The deal typically follows the scheme: 2–talon–2–2–2–2....