Schnapsen

Schnapsen is a card game that is very popular in Austria and is played by two players.

Starting the game

At the beginning every player gets five cards. The other cards are put on the stock, where the last card is laid opened and determines the trump color.

The game proceeding

The player that starts is allowed to play any of his cards. His opponent adds any of his cards.

The player who played the higher value of the same color or trump wins the trick. The cards will be laid beside the player who wins the trick. This is the player who starts the next turn. But before he plays a card he gets the first card of the stock, the other player gets the next card.

As soon as there are no cards any more on the stock, the second player has to add a card of the same color (if possible with a higher value) or trump otherwise if available.

The player who reaches 66 points and claims this wins the game. Otherwise the player who has won the last trick wins the game.

Value of a game

The winner of a single game gets scores that depend on the points, the opponent has reached. If the opponent did not win any trick, the winner gets 3 scores. If the opponent has won at least one trick but has fewer than 33 points, the winner gets 2 scores. Otherwise he gets only 1 score. As soon as any player has reached 7 scores, the game is over.

Announcement

If a player has a Queen and a King of the same color and is allowed to play the first card, an announcement is done if he plays one of the two cards. Such an announcement (also called marriage) has a value of 20 points. If it is done with the trump color, it counts 40 points. These points are only taken into account if the player wins at least one trick.

Exchange trump

The player that has the Jack of the trump-color is allowed to exchange this card with the open trump card below the stock if the player is the one that plays the first card and there are more than two cards on the stock.

Closing

If there are more than two cards on the stock, the player who has to play the first card, is allowed to close. Therefore the open card below the stock is turned. After that it is not possible to fetch new cards from the stock and the second player has to play cards of same color (if possible with a higher value) or trump. The player who closed needs to get enough points with the remaining cards, it does not matter who wins the last trick. Tricks the opponent wins are not taken into account for calculating the value of the game.

If the player who closed looses, the opponent gets as much scores as the other player would have got, but at least 2 scores.

Values of the cards

Jack: 2

Queen: 3

King: 4

Ten: 10

Ace: 11

This game was developed by using the tjger framework (http://www.tjger.com).