Doppelkopf

What is Doppelkopf?

Doppelkopf is the four-hand card game of northern Germany and the Rhineland, a descendant of Schafkopf named for its doubled pack: every card is there twice. Its great twist is the hidden partnership. In a normal game the two players holding the queens of clubs play together as Re against the other two, Kontra, but nobody says who holds them. You find your partner, or hide from your opponents, through the cards played and the calls made, and the whole table plays detective until the parties are clear.

Here you play Doppelkopf by the tournament rules of the Deutscher Doppelkopf-Verband (DDV), with three computer players: Ana on your left, Mihai across and Ioana on your right, on three levels. A game is eight deals, so everyone deals twice, scored plus and minus as in a club evening. Every day brings a Daily Doppelkopf with the same deals for everyone.

How to play Doppelkopf

The pack has 48 cards: ace, ten, king, queen, jack and nine in clubs, spades, hearts and diamonds, each twice. The dealer gives four times three cards to each player, starting on the left.

• Reservations. Before the first card, starting left of the dealer, everyone says healthy or has a reservation. A reservation is a solo, or a wedding when you hold both queens of clubs. A solo beats a wedding, and of two solos the one nearer the dealer's left is played. If you hold both queens of clubs and say healthy, you play alone in a silent wedding that nobody knows about until your second queen of clubs shows it.
• Trumps. In a normal game the 26 trumps run, from the top: the ten of hearts (the Dulle), the queens and the jacks in the order clubs, spades, hearts, diamonds, then the ace, ten, king and nine of diamonds. Clubs and spades run ace, ten, king, nine; hearts only ace, king, nine, because its ten is the Dulle.
• Play. The player left of the dealer leads. Follow the trumps or the plain suit led if you can, otherwise play anything. The highest trump wins, otherwise the highest card of the suit led. Of two equal cards, the first one played wins, the Dulle too.
• Parties and card points. Aces count 11, tens 10, kings 4, queens 3 and jacks 2: 240 in the pack. Re needs 121 to win, Kontra 120.
• Calls. Re (or Kontra) raises the stakes and shows your party. You may say it while you still hold 11 cards. After it come the Absagen, each claiming the other side stays under a mark: no 90 with 10 cards, no 60 with 9, no 30 with 8 and schwarz (not a single trick) with 7. A reply, Kontra to Re or Re to Kontra, may come one card later than the call it answers. A party that called no 90 needs 151 to win, and the other side wins with 90.
• Scoring. The winners get 1 for the game, 1 each for holding the others under 90, 60, 30 and to no trick, 2 for every Re and Kontra said, 1 for every Absage, and 1 for each mark reached against the losers' Absagen. Each winner scores the value, each loser loses it.
• Extra points. A normal game adds 1 for Kontra winning against the queens of clubs, 1 for every trick of 40 card points or more (a Doppelkopf), 1 for every ace of diamonds (the fox, Fuchs) caught from the other party, and 1 for taking the last trick with the jack of clubs (Karlchen). Each goes to the party that earned it and they are set against each other.
• Wedding. A wedding announced makes the first player other than the bride to take a trick, within the first three, her partner. If the bride takes the first three tricks herself, she plays a diamonds solo. No call is allowed before the partner is found, and a partner found in the second or third trick moves every call one or two cards later.
• Solos. A soloist plays alone against three: a suit solo in clubs, spades, hearts or diamonds (that suit takes the place of diamonds among the trumps), a queens solo or a jacks solo (only the queens or only the jacks are trumps), or the Fleischloser with no trumps at all. A solo is scored without extra points, and the soloist wins or loses three times the value.

Your score for the leaderboard is 100 plus your total after eight deals.

Tips and strategy

1. Count your trumps. With 26 trumps in the pack, a normal hand holds six or seven. Eight or more with a queen of clubs and a Dulle is a hand for Re.
2. Show your party. As Re, a queen of clubs played early tells your partner who you are. As Kontra, saying Kontra or being out of trumps does the same.
3. Re plays trumps, Kontra plays plain suits. Re draws the trumps to make its queens count. Kontra cashes plain aces in the first round of clubs or spades, while everyone can still follow.
4. Mind the hearts. Hearts has only six plain cards, so its ace is often trumped the second time round. Play it early or keep it.
5. Smear your partner's tricks. When your partner is sure to take a trick, put an ace, a ten or your fox on it. When the other side takes it, give the least you can.
6. Guard the fox. Never let your ace of diamonds fall into a trick the other party takes: it costs a point. Put it on your partner's trick, or win a trick with it.
7. Call when you are sure. Re or Kontra adds two points to the game for whoever wins it, and every Absage one more. A call also tells the table your party, which can help your partner more than your opponents.

Frequently asked questions

Is Doppelkopf free?

Yes. Like every game on Play, it runs free in your browser, with no download and no account.

Which rules does this Doppelkopf follow?

The tournament rules (Turnier-Spielregeln) of the Deutscher Doppelkopf-Verband: 48 cards with the nines, the Dulle as the highest trump with the first of two equal cards winning, the wedding found by the first trick someone else takes within three, the silent wedding, every solo (the four suit solos, queens, jacks and the Fleischloser), calls from Re and Kontra down to schwarz with replies, plus-minus scoring with the extra points, and solos counted three times. A casual game of eight deals leaves out the compulsory solo of tournament rounds, so every solo here is a voluntary one and the player on the dealer's left always leads. Penalties for faults are not needed, because the game never lets one happen. Poverty (Armut), Schweinchen and the second Dulle beating the first are house rules, not the association's, so they are not played.

Why play with the nines?

Because the German association does. Its tournament rules use the full pack of 48 cards, and so do most clubs and online tables. Some home rounds take the nines out and play with 40 cards, which makes the hands stronger and the game faster, but it is a house variant.

Who is my partner?

In a normal game, whoever holds the other queen of clubs: if you hold one, you are Re and your partner has the second; if you hold none, you are Kontra with the other player who has none. The table finds out as the cards fall. A queen of clubs played shows Re, a call shows the caller's party, and a player who cannot follow a trump lead has no queen of clubs left. The plates at the top show each party as soon as you can be sure of it.

How do the calls work?

The button beside your score shows the next call you may make: Re or Kontra first, then no 90, no 60, no 30 and schwarz. Tap it once to arm it and again to say it, at any moment it is allowed, your turn or not. The computers say theirs on their own turn.

How do the levels differ?

On Easy the computers play many cards without thinking, rarely call and play a solo only on a hand that can hardly lose. On Medium they count their hands and play by the rules club players know: Re plays trumps, Kontra cashes its aces, partners smear each other's tricks and nobody gives away a fox. On Hard they also try every card, call and solo in imagined deals of the cards they have not seen. The computers never look at your cards.

What is the Daily Doppelkopf?

Every day everyone plays the same eight deals against the Medium computers, so the scores compare directly on the leaderboard.