BONUS: Variations

Doppelkopf groups rarely agree on every detail. The core game stays the same, but one table plays with Dullen, another removes the nines, and a third starts a Bock round after a failed announcement. None of these choices is hard to learn. The trouble starts when players assume everyone chose the same version.

Pick your variants before the first deal. You can use one rule, combine several, or leave them all out. The more a rule changes card strength or scoring, the more useful it is to write it down for new players.

Small rules that add points

These rules leave the deal and the trump order mostly alone. They give players a reason to chase a particular trick, especially near the end of the game.

Doppelkopf tricks

A trick worth at least 40 card points is called a Doppelkopf. The side that wins it gets one extra game point. Count the values of all four cards, not just the card that won the trick. This bonus can happen more than once in a game.

Catching foxes

The Ace of Diamonds is a fox. If your side captures an opponent's fox in one of its tricks, your side gets one point. This rule usually applies to normal games and announced weddings, but not to solos or silent weddings.

Charly in the last trick

Charly, the Jack of Clubs, earns a point when it wins the last trick. If another player beats Charly in that trick, the Charly point disappears. Tables that use both rules also give a point to the side that catches Charly.

Charly and catching foxes are normally special points for team games. Do not add them to a solo unless your table has chosen that exception in advance.

Change the trump and the deck

Dullen

With Dullen, the two Tens of Hearts become the highest trumps. That removes two cards from the heart side suit, so a heart lead is easier to trump. In a queen solo, jack solo, or ace solo, the Tens of Hearts go back to being ordinary non-trumps. They keep their Dullen rank in normal games, weddings, and suit solos.

Normally, identical cards in one trick tie in favor of the card played first. This variation changes only the Dullen rule. If both Tens of Hearts appear in the same trick, the second one played wins. Some tables reward the player who catches the first Dulle with an extra point.

A common exception keeps the usual order in the last trick. Decide this before the game, because the last Dulle is the one players are most likely to plan around.

Sharp Doppelkopf

Remove all eight nines and play with 40 cards. The game moves faster, every remaining card has point value, and players are less likely to hold a card in the suit that was led. That changes both following suit and the timing of a trump, rather than simply shortening the deal.

Piglets

A player who holds both Aces of Diamonds may announce Piglets during the reservation round. Those two cards become the highest trumps, above the Dullen. Most groups give a solo or an announced wedding priority over Piglets, but the table must choose its contract order before play.

Give difficult hands a way out

Poverty

A player with three trumps or fewer may announce poverty before the game starts. If no higher-priority contract is chosen, that player places all of their trumps face down and asks the other players, one at a time, whether they will become their partner.

The player who accepts takes the covered cards without looking first, then returns the same number of cards from their own hand. Some groups require the new partner to say whether any trumps were returned. If nobody accepts, shuffle and deal again.

Throwing a hand

You can allow a player with an exceptionally poor hand to show every card and request a redeal. Common qualifying hands include the following:

• Five nines when the deck includes nines, or five kings in sharp Doppelkopf.
• Four nines and four kings.
• A hand made only of trumps at or below the Jack of Diamonds.
• A hand with two trumps or fewer.

Throwing is a contract, so set its priority before the deal. Some tables put it below solos and weddings. Others let it take priority over every other reservation.

Bock rounds double the next games

A Bock round is four games with doubled game scores. It begins after the game that triggered it, not in the middle of that game. If two Bock triggers are active, scores are quadrupled. Three active triggers make them six times as large.

You can use any combination of triggers. These are common choices:

Make announcements easier to learn

With forced announcement, a player who wins at least 30 card points in the first trick must make the required Re or Kontra announcement. It gives new players a reason to try announcements instead of waiting until they feel completely certain.

This rule is simple, but it changes the first trick. If your table uses it, say so before dealing and explain what counts as a legal announcement in your ruleset.

Playing with five players

Four players still play each game. With five at the table, choose one player to sit out and rotate that seat from game to game. After five games, everyone has missed one. It is the cleanest way to keep the normal deal and the usual four-player teams.

Write down the choices

Before dealing, settle the rules that affect card strength, contracts, redeals, and score multipliers. Pay special attention to exceptions in solos and weddings. A short list on the table saves more time than an argument after the first fox has been captured.