WATTEN
Watten is a fun card game that people play in the Alps, from Southern Germany to Tyrol. It’s a game where four players form teams and work together to win. It’s a little different from other trick-taking games because you can decide how many points to play for, depending on how daring you are.
Ready to put your German heritage to the test and play Watten?
GETTING STARTED
So, here’s how we get started. The first thing we need to do is divide into teams. We’ll have four players, so we’ll split up into two teams. To decide who the dealer is, we can have the players choose. Once we have a dealer, they’ll shuffle the cards and then the player on their left will cut the deck. Now, pay attention because this part is interesting. If the card that gets cut is a Kritische, which is like a German version of a Queen, the person who did the cutting gets to keep it. And if they cut another Kritische, the dealer gets to keep that one. But if they cut one more Kritische, then the person who did the cutting gets to keep that one too. Pretty cool, huh?
Once that’s all sorted, the dealer will start dealing out the cards. Each player will get five cards in total. The dealer will give each player a packet of three cards and then a packet of two cards. But remember, if the dealer or the person who cut the cards got any Kritische earlier, they’ll get fewer cards in the first round. But don’t worry, in the end, everyone will have five cards in their hand. Now we’re ready to get this game started!
When it’s time to play the game, both the dealer and the player on their left take a look at their cards. It’s the player on the left who gets to decide which rank will be the trump. As for the suit of the trump, the dealer gets to choose that. Once the dealer and the other player have made their announcements about the trump rank and suit, the rest of the players can finally take a look at their cards.
Here’s How the Game Goes
The game is divided into tricks, which are made up of each player taking their turn to play one card. The first trick is led by the player to the left of the dealer. To win a trick, you either need to play the highest trump card or, if there are no trumps, the highest card overall. The winner of a trick becomes the leader for the next one.
If I’m leading the first trick and I have both the highest rank and suit, I can say “Trumpf oder Kritische”. When I do this, everyone else has to play a Kritische or a card from the trump suit if they can. We keep going like this until someone plays a Kritische that beats the card I played. Then, everyone can play whatever card they want.
The goal is to win three tricks and score two points. Once my team wins three tricks, we can end the round and do the scoring.
If my team wins three tricks, we earn two points. Then, we can start a new round, and the player who won the last trick gets to lead the next one. We keep playing until one team wins 11 points.
END OF GAME
The game ends when one team scores 11 points. When that happens, they’re declared the winners, and the losers have to buy the drinks.