Welcome to Doppelkopf!

Hey there, I’m here to tell you all about Doppelkopf, a really cool card game that four people can play together. It’s all about taking tricks and scoring points over a bunch of rounds. Before we start, we need to agree on how many rounds we want to play and who our partners will be.

The goal of the game is to score game points, but we can only do that if we earn enough points in each round. To earn points, we need to win tricks and score them based on the cards we have. But, there’s a catch! The number of points we need to score to earn game points depends on our partnership and the announcements and bidding we make during the game.

Ready to Get Started?

Okay, let’s start by making some changes to the decks. We need to adjust them a bit. So, what we’ll do is remove all the cards with a rank of 8 or below. That means we’ll be taking out quite a few cards. After this modification, each deck will have two of each card for the Aces, Kings, Queens, Jacks, 10s, and 9s. So, there will still be a good variety of cards to play with.

Now, let’s talk about how the game begins. The first dealer is chosen randomly, so it’s all up to chance. After that, the dealer will change for each new round, moving to the left. To start the game, the dealer will shuffle the cards, and then the player to their right will cut the deck. This is just a way to add a little bit of extra randomness to the game.

Once the cards are all shuffled and cut, it’s time to deal them out. Each player will receive three cards at a time, going clockwise around the table. This will continue until all the cards have been dealt out to the players. So everyone will have their fair share of cards to work with.

Ranking and Values of the Cards

When you play most rounds of the game, the deck of cards has a specific ranking system. Each suit and each card within the suit has its own rank. The highest-ranked suit is the trump suit, and it consists of the 10 of hearts (which is the highest card), followed by the Queen of clubs, the Queen of spades, the Queen of hearts, the Queen of diamonds, the Jack of clubs, the Jack of spades, the Jack of hearts, the Jack of diamonds, the Ace of diamonds, the 10 of diamonds, the King of diamonds, and finally, the 9 of diamonds (which is the lowest card in the trump suit). The next suit in rank is the clubs, and it includes the Ace of clubs (which is the highest card in that suit), followed by the 10 of clubs, the King of clubs, and the 9 of clubs (which is the lowest card in the clubs suit). Next is the spades suit, with the Ace of spades as the highest card, followed by the 10 of spades, the King of spades, and the 9 of spades (which is the lowest card in the spades suit). The lowest-ranked suit is hearts, which consists of the Ace of hearts (the highest card in the hearts suit), the King of hearts, and the 9 of hearts (which is the lowest card in the hearts suit).

The cards have different values. Aces are worth 11 points, 10s are worth 10 points, Kings are worth 4 points, Queens are worth 3 points, and Jacks are worth 2 points. Any other cards have no point value. This means that in each round, a total of 240 points can be obtained.

BIDDING

When hands are dealt, players start bidding. The bidding begins with the player to the left of the dealer. Each player can choose to bid for a normal (“healthy”) game or a modified (“reservation”) game. If all players choose the normal game, a traditional round of Doppelkopf is played.

However, if one or more players want to play a modified game, each player gets another chance to declare the kind of game they want to play. The game types are ranked from lowest to highest as Marriage, Poverty, and solo. The player who bids for the highest game type first wins the bid.

Different Kinds of Games

There are four categories of games: Normal, Marriage, Poverty, and solo. Each type has its unique characteristics and ways of determining partnerships.

Normal Games

In normal games, the partners are decided based on the players who hold the two queens of clubs. These players, whether it’s two or just one, become a team and the rest of the players become opponents. This information is not shared, and players might not know who is on their team until later in the game, or maybe even not at all. When a single player possesses both queens of clubs, it is referred to as a silent solo.

Marriage Games

When you’re playing a card game and you happen to hold both Queens of clubs, you might want to go for what’s called a marriage. It’s a special move in the game, and it changes some of the rules. But don’t worry, it’s not too complicated!

An Exciting Twist

If you decide to go for a marriage, the game is played almost like usual, but with one exciting twist. Instead of the bidder being the first player to win a trick, it’s actually their partner who gets that honor. So, if you bid successfully and no one else wins a trick before your partner, they get to play the first card in the game!

But don’t worry if your partner doesn’t win one of the first three tricks. In that case, you’ll still have a chance to show off your skills and play alone as the bidder.

Poverty

If you don’t have many trump cards in your hand, you might consider calling for a game of poverty. This adds a different twist to the game and gives you a chance to turn the tables.

Here’s how it works: if you successfully call for a game of poverty, you’ll place three cards on the table. Then, starting with the bidder and going clockwise, each player will have a choice. They can either take those three cards or pass on them.

If a player decides to take the three cards, they become the bidder’s partner for the game. They add those cards to their hand and pass back three cards from their hand, which can be any cards, including the ones they just received.

So, if you’re feeling risky and don’t have many trump cards, calling for a game of poverty might just give you the edge you need to win!

If nobody says yes to the three cards, the dealer takes them back and deals again.

Playing Alone

In a game where you play alone, it’s just you against everyone else. There are four types of games you can play by yourself. You can play with trump cards, queen cards, jack cards, or ace cards.

If you choose to play with trump cards, you get to pick a new suit to be the trump. If you choose diamonds, then the cards follow the same order as before. But if you pick a different suit as the trump, the order changes. The aces, 10, king, and 9 of diamonds become regular cards in that order. They switch places with the new trump suit, and the diamond cards are replaced with the new ones. The only exception is hearts. If they become the trump suit, the 10 of hearts is still the highest trump card.

When it comes to the queen solo, only the queens hold any power in the trumps suit for that round. The ranks of the other suits include clubs, spades, hearts, and diamonds. As for all other cards, the Ace is the highest, followed by the 10, King, Jack, and 9 at the lowest.

If you’re playing a jack solo, the rules are the same as a queen solo, with the exception that jacks become the trumps instead of queens.

In the case of an Ace solo, there are no trumps in play. All suits follow the same ranking order, starting with the Ace as the highest, then the 10, King, Queen, Jack, and finally the 9 as the lowest card.

GAMEPLAY

When it’s time to start playing, the first person to play is the one on the left of the dealer. They can choose any card to start the round. The next player has to follow suit if they can, but if they can’t, they can play any card they want. The winner of the trick is determined by the highest-ranked trump card, if there is one. If there isn’t, then the highest-ranked card of the suit that was led wins the trick. If two cards with the same rank would win, the first card that was played wins. Just keep in mind that some cards belong to the trump suit and not the suit printed on them.

When someone wins a trick, they collect the cards and put them in their scoring pile. Then, they get to start the next trick.

Announcements

During the game, you can make announcements that will affect the scoring later on. But remember, there are usually some restrictions on what you can announce.

Let me explain how the game works. There are two teams: the Re team and the Kontra team. The Re team is the team that wins the bid, or if it’s a normal game, the team with the queens of clubs. Their goal for the round is to score at least 121 points. On the other hand, the Kontra team only needs 120 points to win.

If the Re team has 11 or more cards in their hand, they can call “Re” to increase their scores. Similarly, if the Kontra team has 11 or more cards, they can call “Kontra” to do the same. Once one team calls it, the other team only needs 10 or more cards to make their announcement. If the Kontra team calls “Kontra” and the Re team doesn’t call “Re” during the round, the Re team only needs to score 120 points to win.

There are more announcements that I can make. I need to have made the previous announcement in order to make the next highest one. The advanced announcements are called No 90, No 60, No 30, and Schwarz. To make a No 90 announcement, I need to have at least 10 cards in my hand and my team must have already called either Re or Kontra. For a No 60 announcement, I need 9 cards and I must have already made the previously required announcements. For a No 30 announcement, I need 8 cards and I must have already made the previously required announcements. For a Schwarz announcement, I need 7 cards and I must have already made the previously required announcements. Additionally, for each announcement that my team makes, if the opposing team has not made their first announcement, whether it’s Re or Kontra, the number of cards needed to make the announcement decreases by one.

Hey there! Let’s dive into some intriguing rules of the exhilarating game of announcements. So, here’s the lowdown: if we don’t hit the required scores of 90, 60, or 30, the opposing team gets some nifty bonuses. Quite the incentive!

But hold your horses, my friend. No announcements can be made during a marriage until we figure out the partnerships. Oh, and here’s a little twist: the number of cards we need to win decreases by the number of tricks it takes to determine our partners. Now that’s one fancy calculation!

Now, picture this scenario: things get a bit blurry and it’s not clear when one of our savvy players makes an announcement. Well, no worries! They can simply declare which team they’re making it for. Let’s say someone wants to claim the no 90 declaration, but their partnership is yet to be known. In that case, they’d either say Re or Kontra, depending on which team they belong to. Clear as crystal, right?

The Thrill of Scoring

Once you’ve finished playing all the trick cards in a round, it’s time to start scoring. The score for the round always equals zero, which means that whatever points one team gains, the other team will lose the same number of points. The points are tallied up for each team to determine their scores for the round.

You have the option to play the game as a payout game, which means that for every game point won in a round, the losing team members make payouts. If you don’t choose this option, scores will be kept instead.

The most basic score you can get is 1 point. This is the goal for the Re team, and they need to reach either 120 or 121 points (as described in the announcements). The Kontra team, on the other hand, needs 120 points to score 2 points. They get one point for completing their goal and another point for beating the other team.

When playing Re or Kontra, something interesting happens – the team that wins the round gets an extra 2 points. That means if both Re and Kontra are called, the team can earn a total of 4 extra points! It’s like a little bonus for doing well.

Now, let’s talk about advanced announcements. These are worth 1 point each if they are completed successfully. But here’s the catch – if an advanced announcement is not completed, the team automatically loses the round. And not only that, but the opposing team also gets all the points they would have scored. It’s a pretty tough penalty, so you have to be careful with your announcements.

There are three more scoring situations that are independent of the game score. These situations don’t affect who wins the round, but they do count towards the overall game score. If any of these situations occur, every member of the team gets the points.

The first situation is called capturing a fox. It’s like catching a clever little creature! If you win a trick that contains the other team’s ace of diamonds, you get one point. But here’s the interesting part – you have to keep that ace faceup in your score pile to show everyone that you captured the fox. It stays there until it’s clear which team it belongs to.

There are three types of rounds in the game of Fox in the Forest. The first is called a Fox round. In this round, if you win a trick with a fox, you earn a point. However, if you lose a trick with a fox, you lose a point as well.

The second round is called a Charlie Miller. If you win the last trick with a Jack of clubs, you earn a point. But be careful, because if you lose the trick with a Jack of clubs to an opponent, you also lose a point.

The final round is called a Doppelkopf. In this round, you earn a point when you win a trick that contains only 10s or aces, or a combination of both. You can keep track of this by keeping all the trick cards faceup in your score pile.

In Solo rounds, you cannot win any Fox or Charlie points.

END OF GAME

The game can end in three ways: when a targeted score is reached, when a certain number of rounds is played, or when a set amount of time passes. Additionally, all players have the option to call an end to the game. The winner is determined by the player with the highest score or the most money.

I’m Amber (They/Them), an Austin writer and gaming connoisseur. I consider myself a gaming master and I have a deep love for dogs, plants, and D&D.