Tongo (Star Trek)

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This article is about the fictional card game from the Star Trek Universe. For the town in north eastern Ghana, see tongo.

Tongo is a card game in the Star Trek Universe. It is very popular among the Ferengi Race. You can see Quark playing it regularly after he closes his bar, with many Ferengi on Deep Space Nine.

Quark insists that you have to be a Ferengi to play, the only exception he makes is Jadzia Dax (and later Ezri Dax). This is because Jadzia and Ezri encompass the knowledge of the game from Curzon Dax when he played it on a regular basis. He once let Julian Bashir into a game after he insisted (after Miles O'Brien persuaded him to play), attempting to beat Quark's winning streak of 247 games. (DS9: "Change of Heart")

While she was attending a tongo championship, Quark's mother Ishka helped the struggling Grand Nagus Zek to win. The two later became romantically involved. (DS9: "Ferengi Love Songs")

[edit] Rules

It is somewhat similar to poker in the sense that the winner collects the money from the pot (on top of the spinning board), and the fact that a set of cards has a specific title (ie. full consortium, total monopoly). But it is also very similar to monopoly in the sense that you acquire the cards on the table. You have to confront, evade, acquire or retreat the other players in the game.

Cards are dealt to the players. The dealer then launches the betting with an opening risk; a typical risk is five strips of gold-pressed latinum, with a purchase at three, and the sell at eight. The dealer then drops his or her bet into the bowl, and spins the table. The table continues to spin while the other players throw in their wagers, until the player to the dealer's left grabs a handle to stop it from turning further.

Once the table is still players scan the square cards on the tabletop for potential moves; the cards can be moved within their section, as well as to and from contiguous sections on either side. Over this, participants respond to the bet in play with one of the following options: evade, retreat, acquire, or confront. They may draw or reject a circular card, or up the stakes.

Finally, the player who stopped the spinning table declares his wager, drops latinum into the bowl, and sets the tabletop spinning once more in either direction. When the table is back in motion, the players deposit their new wagers in the bowl, to keep up with the current sale price.

Wagering is not simple. A risk to buy at 30 and sell at 35 might be countered with "buying 5 at 35, selling at 150, and indexing the margin at 10 percent." Tongo ultimately sounds like the Ferengi Futures Exchange, as players alternate between upping the buying and selling of stakes, indexing the margin and exchange, leveraging the buy-in, and ultimately converting reserves and selling.