Coiffeur Jass: rules, chart and variations

The idea behind Coiffeur

Cards, tricks and card values are the same in Coiffeur as in Schieber. Two teams of two play against each other, with partners sitting opposite. The big difference is the chart. Every call has its own row on it, with its own multiplier, and each team has to play every row exactly once. So you can’t pick your favourite call every round. Sooner or later you have to play the row that doesn’t suit you at all.

Because every row has its own multiplier, not every round is worth the same. A good hand in a high row can decide a game, and a round gone wrong on ×1 costs almost nothing. The art lies in choosing the right row for the right hand. At the end the team with the higher total wins.

The Coiffeur chart with its rows and multipliers

The classic chart has six rows. Each row has a multiplier for the points of that round. With six rows for each team that makes twelve rounds. This is the chart a new Coiffeur table on wyys.ch starts with:

Charts differ from table to table. Some groups swap Bells and Shields, others put Obenabe before Undenufe or add further rows. That is why the chart on wyys.ch has ten slots, one for each factor from one to ten, and the host decides which call sits on which multiplier. The same call can also sit on several multipliers, for example a Joker on ×7 and a second one on ×8. Each slot is then played once by each team.

Calling and Schieben

The player to the dealer’s right calls first and picks a row their own team still has open. A row that only the other team has played is still yours to choose. If no open row suits you, you say Schieben and pass the call on. Unlike in Schieber, it doesn’t go to your partner but to the next player anticlockwise, which means an opponent. That way every player at the table gets the chance to pick a row for their team.

After four passes the call is back with the first player, and now they have to call. Once a team has played all of its rows, it no longer has to call, so nobody passes to it any more. The call then skips that team and goes to the next player who still has a row open. If the player to the dealer’s right belongs to that team, the call starts straight away with the next player who still has a row open. The two players of the other team may then pass once each, and after that the player with whom the call began has to call. The player who calls also leads the first trick. With the call they commit their team: only that team scores in this round.

Tricks are played as in Schieber. You have to follow suit, you may trump at any time, and you may not undertrump unless you have nothing but trumps left. There is no Weis and no Stöck in Coiffeur on wyys.ch. That is what most rule books say, even though some groups play with Weis.

How the scoring works

At the end of the round the calling team counts the points in its tricks, plus the last trick. Only the tens go on the chart, and these are called written points. If the total ends in 0 to 4, it is rounded down, and if it ends in 5 to 9, it is rounded up. So 75 points become 8 written points, and 74 points only 7. Then this number is multiplied by the row’s multiplier. If the calling team takes 102 points in the Roses ×2 row, it writes 10 times 2, so 20. The other team scores nothing in this round, even if it took more points.

If the calling team takes all nine tricks, that’s a Match. The round is then worth 160 points instead of 157, so 16 written points, which makes 96 in the Obenabe ×6 row. In Schieber a Match earns 100 extra points, but Coiffeur uses the value from the rules of the Swiss Jass championship, where a Match counts 16 tens. If the other team takes every trick, the calling team writes a zero in its row, and the row still counts as played.

Not every table counts the Match the same. Some add 100 points as in Schieber, which makes 257, and others count it as 300. On wyys.ch the host chooses in the table rules whether a Match is worth 160, 257 or 300 points. Even then only the tens are written, so a Match at 257 points gives 26 written points.

Slalom, Guschti, Joker, Misère and 3×3

Many tables add more rows to the six. They usually sit on the high multipliers, because they are harder to play. On wyys.ch you can put any of these rows on a free slot of the chart.

Slalom

In Slalom, Obenabe and Undenufe alternate from trick to trick. The player who calls decides which one the round starts with. The card values don’t switch, though: they stay those of the first trick for the whole round. Slalom usually sits on ×7.

Guschti

In Guschti, which is also called Quer, the first five tricks are played in the direction called and the last four the other way round. Here too the calling player decides whether the round starts with Obenabe or Undenufe, and the card values follow the direction it starts with. Guschti has no fixed multiplier, and every table sets its own.

Joker

In Joker the calling player decides freely what is played: one of the four suits as trump, Obenabe or Undenufe. The round is then played exactly like that, but scored with the Joker row’s multiplier. Joker usually sits on ×8. It’s the row players like to save for a particularly good hand.

Misère

Misère is played like Obenabe, but the calling team wants to take as few points as possible. The calling team scores the points the opponents took, times the multiplier. If the calling team doesn’t take a single trick, the opponents have a Match, and the calling team writes 160 times the multiplier. If the calling team takes every trick instead, it writes a zero.

3×3

In 3×3 the round consists of three blocks of three tricks. Each block is played differently: one with a trump suit, one Obenabe and one Undenufe. The calling player chooses the first block. Before the fourth and before the seventh trick, the player about to lead chooses how the next block is played. As soon as the trump suit is set, all the cards of the round count by the trump values, including the tricks already taken.

End of the game and the winner

The game ends when both teams have played every row of the chart. Then the team with the higher total wins. If it’s a tie, the team with fewer zeros on the chart wins. If that is equal too, the best single round decides.

On wyys.ch the chart keeps track of everything for you. It shows which rows are still open and how each round was scored, so you can follow every point. You play Coiffeur free and without signing up, on your own against bots or with friends at a table, on your phone or at your computer. The short version of the rules is on the rules page.