After covering the basics, we’ll now dive into the advanced rules and tactics of the game.

When we use advanced rules — announcements, bids, special rules and variations — we usually have one goal in mind: boost the game value. This makes the game more exciting and at the same time more strategic. We’ll first look at announcements and bids before we take a look at weddings, solos, and finally a whole list of typical variations and special rules.

Announcements

A player who holds great cards and who is confident that they’re going to win can announce this very fact. By making an announcement, a player declares that their party is going to win the game. To make this announcement, a Re player simply says “Re” out loud, a Kontra player naturally says “Kontra”.

An announcement does 2 things:

1. It tells all other players to which party the announcing player belongs.
2. It grants the winning party 2 extra points — if they actually win the game.

In a regular game without any announcements Re needs to score 121 card points to win, for Kontra 120 card points are enough. In a game where announcements have been made, this changes slightly: The winning party (no matter if it’s Re or Kontra) needs at least 121 card points to win.

A player is allowed to announce “Re” or “Kontra” as long as they’ve still got 11 cards on their hand. Should they miss this moment, they are no longer allowed to make announcements.

Both parties can announce “Re” and “Kontra” in the same game. If both parties are confident that they are going to win and make their announcements accordingly, the game value shoots up by 4 points.

Apart from boosting the game value, an announcement can be helpful for tactical reasons. By making an announcement my partner immediately knows who they’re playing with. They’re now able to play high-value cards into tricks their partner is going to win. Opponents of an announcing player learn a little less from an announcement: They do learn that they’re not playing with the announcing player, but they do not learn which one of the remaining two other players is their partner. This kind of unevenly distributed information is typical for a game of Doppelkopf and one of its most intriguing aspects.

Bids

Next to making announcements that convey that a given party thinks they will win, each party can also make bids. With bids a party declares that they believe that their opponents will fail to score a certain amount of card points in the current game.

Possible bids and their meaning are:

• No 90: Opponents will score less than 90 card points
• No 60: Opponents will score less than 60 card points
• No 30: Opponents will score less than 30 card points
• No points ("schwarz"): Opponents will score no card points at all

Just like announcements, bids need to be made up until a certain point in time. You can only make bids if you made an announcement earlier. Equally, bids need to be made in the right order. Declaring “no 90” without first having announced “Re” (or “Kontra”) is not allowed. Declaring “no 60” after having skipped “no 90” is not allowed either. You are allowed to make multiple announcements and bids at the same time, granted you still hold enough cards for all the desired announcements and bids.

Announcements and bids can be made from both players of a given party. In order to declare a bid you simply say the respective bid out loud (again, granted the order and required amount of cards are being respected).

It often happens that one player announces “Re” and their partner follows up with a “no 90” a little later. This sends a signal that the bidding partner, too, has strong cards on their hand.

Failing to make announcements and bids

There’s a chance that a party pushes their luck when making announcements and bids. If they say “no 60” they need to win the game in a way that the opponents indeed don’t score 60 card points. Should the opposing party score 60 or more card points, the bidding party loses the game and all game points (apart from bonus points) go to the other party. This can lead to a situation where the opposing party wins a game despite having scored the minority of total card points in a game. The same is true for “Re” or “Kontra” announcements: If a party makes these announcements, they better win the game — otherwise the other party will receive extra game points.

It can get worse if a bidding party turns out to be completely wrong. If the opposing party doesn’t just score the amount of card points that the other party declared in their bid but exceeds it by 30 points, the opposing party gets an extra point for that fact. As an example: If Kontra says “no 60” and Re manages to score 91 card points, Kontra loses the game and Re receives an extra point for scoring “90 points against declared 60”.

Stay level-headed when making announcements and bids. It’s an exciting way to boost the game value in your favor — or in the favor of your opponents if you mess it up.

Scoring

Let’s get back to scoring. We’ve covered the basic patterns in the scoring chapter. Additionally we now account for announcements and bids when figuring out the game vaule:

Succeeding to make certain announcements and bids grants the winning party the following game points:

• Re or Kontra: +2 points
• No 90: +1 point
• No 60: +1 point
• No 30: +1 point
• No points ("schwarz"): +1 point

Failing to make announcements or bids leads to the opposing party winning these respective points. If the opposing party manages to exceed bids by 30 points each, they receive additional points.

It’s probably easiest to look at another example:

We get a different outcome if a party fails to meet their announcements and bids. Here’s another example:

If both parties fail to meet their goals

In rare cases both parties can fail to meet their goals. Let’s assume both, Re and Kontra, make a “no 90” bid. The game ends with 110 card points for Re, 130 card points for Kontra. Kontra might have won the majority of card points, but both parties also happened to have declared “no 90” — and both parties failed to make that happen.

In this rare case there’s indeed no winner. Nobody receives any points for winning the game. There are no points for announcing “Re” or “Kontra”, no points for bids. Bonus points (for catching a fox, charly, etc.), however, still apply; and so do points for exceeding bids by 30 card points.

Announcing and bidding is a delicate dance

Making announcements and declaring bids are great ways to make the game more tactical and reveal your party early on. They’re great tools to boost the game value. It takes a bit of practice and skill to handle announcements and bids the right way — but that’s precisely what makes them so exciting.

It’s best to practice and gather experience. If you’ve got a solid hand with only few non-trumps or many high trumps, an announcement might be in order. Equally winning a solid amount of card points in the first trick might be a good excuse to make an announcement. Give it a shot, mess it up a few times, and you’ll get a better feeling for it.

You can practice announcements and declarations in our browser game. The following link takes you to the game where announcements and bids are possible for the first time: