User:Hans Adler/Schlauch

Schlauch is a historical German 10-card plain-trick game for three players using a 32-card piquet pack. The game appears to be closely related both to Réunion and to the Euchre family.

Basic rules
Each player receives 10 cards. The dealer receives 2 more cards but discards to get his or her hand down to 10 cards. One of the cards dealt to the dealer is displayed but does not make trumps. A dealer who discards a card of that suit or an ace must announce the fact.

Trick-play is as in Whist. Declarer always leads to the first trick. Aces rank high. Tens normall rank high as well, i.e. between aces and kings. Only in misère contracts they rank low, between jacks and nines. In grandioso and misère contracts there are no trumps at all.

In schlauch contracts, the trump suit is determined by the declarer. The jack of trumps is the highest trump. The other jack of the same colour is also a member of the trump suit rather than its natural suit, and is the second highest trump.

Declarer must win (or in misère contracts: lose) all tricks.

Contracts and auction
The players declare in turn which contract they want to play. Later players must bid a higher contract value than earlier players. For two contracts of the same numerical value, a schlauch contract is deemed higher. If nobody wants to play, the same dealer deals again.

In schlauch, double schlauch or grandioso contracts, the declarer may ask for a specific card which will be provided by the opponent who holds it in exchange for any other card from declarer's hand. If declarer waives this right, this is known as sans prendre and doubles the contract value (as shown in the table). Schlauch contracts are also doubled in value if hearts are trumps. Misère contracts can be doubled in value by playing them ouvert, i.e. the declarer plays with open cards.

Some contracts can be combined as shown in the table. For such combined contracts, the first 5 tricks are played according to the first half of the contract. Then declarer leads again to the sixth trick, and the remaining 5 tricks are played according to the second half of the contract. The two halfs are won or lost separately. Double schlauch consists of two schlauch contracts in which the trump suits have different colours (so that each jack is a trump in precisely one half of the trick-play phase).

Scoring
If declarer makes it, each opponent gets as many strokes as shown in the table. If declarer loses, declarer gets twice the number of strokes shown in the table. In case of a redeal because nobody bids, declarer gets 1 stroke, or 2 strokes if the turn-up card was hearts.

After schlauch and grandioso games, players also count their card-points individually. The card-point values are as in Skat, with the exception that in schlauch contracts the two highest jacks are worth 12 points and in grandioso contracts all jacks are worth 7 points. Also the last trick is worth an extra 10 points, resulting in a total of 150 points in the game. After every 3 hands, for every 100 points that one player has more than the others, those get 1 stroke; the player with the lowest number of points gets 1 stroke; and any player with no points at all gets another stroke.