One of the most intriguing parts of Doppelkopf is that you usually play with a partner — but who that partner is remains a mystery for a good part of the game. Initially, none of the players know their partner. Over the course of the game, clever moves or announcements can help you and others figure out who your partners are.

Re and Kontra

There are two parties in each game: Re and Kontra. If you have the Q ♣ queen of clubs (also called “the old one” or "die Alte" in German) on your hand you belong to the Re party, otherwise you are Kontra.

Party affiliation matters when evaluating the game: Players of the same party combine their points. They win and lose together.

This creates room for a lot of exciting tactics you can use to influence the game in your favor. If you know your partner and you happen to play the last card in a trick that your partner has secured already, you get a chance to add a lot of card points to your partner’s trick by playing a high-value card (like an ace). In a similar vein, you can give your partner a chance to schmear a lot of points by playing a high trump to a trick early.

Finding your partner

When playing Doppelkopf you don’t talk about your cards. Communicating with your partner is not allowed. In order to find your partner or reveal yourself, you only have a few selected options:

1. Someone plays the Q ♣ queen of clubs . Doing so will reveal to all players that the player is Re. However, the person playing the queen of clubs does not learn anything about their partners just yet.
2. A player announces “Re” or “Kontra” early in the game (more on that in the announcements chapter). In this case, too, the other players gain more information than the announcing player.
3. A player schmears a trick by adding a lot of points to a trick that goes to another player who already revealed their party affiliation. This isn’t always crystal-clear — after all the schmearing player might simply have no other choice if they’re forced to follow suit — but sometimes it might mean something.
4. A player overtrumps a trick that another player who already revealed their party had secured so far. In this case the overtrumping player might be the opponent of the other player. Or they simply couldn’t have any other options. There’s a bit of nuance to take into account here.

In order to win a game you need to keep an eye on who’s playing together. Over the course of a game you and the other players learn more about the party affiliations which allows you to play increasingly tactical. Knowledge about party affiliation is often unevenly, some players know a lot while others are left in the dark for longer. This often leads to exciting moments in the game and is what makes Doppelkopf such a fun game to play.

Now that we understand partnerships and parties, we understand enough to play smart and with intention. Next up we’ll take a look at scoring and how we determine who wins a game and then we’re ready for our first real game. Let’s roll!