Jass rules

Aim

In Schieber two teams of two play against each other, with partners sitting opposite. The first team to reach the target score wins. The usual target is 2,500 points with multipliers or 1,000 without. The game ends at that very moment, even if the round isn’t finished.

Cards

Jass is played with 36 cards in four suits of nine: 6, 7, 8, 9, Ten, Under, Ober, King and Ace. The Under and Ober are the two Swiss court cards below the King, and on Swiss cards the Ten shows a banner and is called the Banner. Each player gets nine cards.

The Swiss suits are Acorns (Eicheln), Roses (Rosen), Bells (Schellen) and Shields (Schilten). With French cards they are Diamonds, Hearts, Clubs and Spades, and the Under and Ober become the Jack and the Queen. Swiss-printed French cards mark the Jack B (Bube) and the Queen D (Dame).

Calling trump

The player to the dealer’s right calls trump. In the first round that is whoever holds the Seven of Roses, or the Seven of Hearts with French cards. After that the deal moves one seat to the right every round. The caller picks a trump suit or calls Obenabe or Undenufe. Obenabe means no trump, and the Ace is the highest card. Undenufe means no trump either, but the order is turned upside down and the Six is the highest card. Instead of choosing, the player to the dealer’s right may also say Schieben, which passes the choice to their partner. The partner then has to choose and can’t pass it back. Either way, the player to the dealer’s right leads the first trick.

Card order

In trump the order is Under (the Buur), Nine (the Nell), Ace, King, Ober, Ten, 8, 7, 6. Any trump beats any card of another suit.

In the other suits, and in Obenabe, the order is Ace, King, Ober, Under, Ten, 9, 8, 7, 6.

In Undenufe the order is reversed: 6, 7, 8, 9, Ten, Under, Ober, King, Ace.

Card values

Each round is worth 157 points: 152 in the cards and 5 for the last trick.

Tricks

• You have to follow suit if you can. The only card you may always keep back is the Buur.
• You may trump at any time, even if you could follow suit.
• You may not undertrump, which means adding a lower trump to a trick that someone has already trumped, unless you have nothing but trumps left.
• If trump is led, you have to play a trump. If the Buur is your only trump, you may play another card.
• Whoever takes the trick leads the next one.

Weis

A Weis is a bonus combination in your hand, such as three or more cards of one suit in a row or four of a kind, and you declare it with your first card. Only the team with the highest Weis scores, but it scores every Weis it has. If two Weis are worth the same, the longer run wins, then the higher card, then the Weis in trump, and finally the player to the dealer’s right. The game spots your Weis by itself. If you’d rather not declare, tap ‘No Weis’ before you play your first card.

Four of a kind is worth 100 points, and that includes four Sixes, Sevens or Eights. There’s an overview of the Weis rules (in German) on Jassverzeichnis.

Stöck

If you hold the King and Ober of trump, that’s Stöck, and it’s worth 20 points. Stöck always counts, even if the opponents have the higher Weis or make a Match. The game adds it for you as soon as you’ve played the second of the two cards.

Points and multipliers

All the points in a round are multiplied by the factor of the call: the tricks, the last trick, Weis, Stöck and the Match. The usual factors are Acorns and Roses ×1, Bells and Shields ×2, and Obenabe and Undenufe ×3. With French cards, Clubs and Spades count double.

If a team takes all nine tricks in a round, that’s a Match. It earns 100 extra points, so 257 instead of 157.

End of the game and the Bergpreis

The game ends as soon as a team reaches the target score. If both teams get there in the same round, the points are counted in a fixed order: Stöck first, then Weis, then the tricks. That settles which team got there first.

The Bergpreis goes to the first team to pass a set mark on the way to the target. On wyys.ch that mark is 1,500 by default, and the host can choose half the target instead. After that the game simply carries on.

In Coiffeur two teams play as in Schieber, but the calls are written on a chart, and each team plays every row exactly once. The usual chart has six rows: Acorns ×1, Roses ×2, Bells ×3, Shields ×4, Undenufe ×5 and Obenabe ×6. That makes twelve rounds.

The player to the dealer’s right gets the first call and picks a row their team still has open. In the first round, as in Schieber, that is whoever holds the Seven of Roses. If they don’t want to call, they say Schieben, and the call moves to the next player on the right. After four passes the player to the dealer’s right has to call. Once a team has played all its rows, the call no longer passes to it but 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 the call started with has to call. The call commits the whole team, and only that team scores this round. The player who called leads the first trick.

At the end of the round the calling team writes down only the tens of its points. A total ending in 0 to 4 is rounded down and one ending in 5 to 9 is rounded up, so 75 points become 8 and 74 points become 7. That number is multiplied by the row’s factor: 102 points in the Roses ×2 row give 20. In Coiffeur a Match is worth 160 points, which is written as 16, or 96 in the Obenabe ×6 row. The table can also set the Match to 257 or 300 points, which are then written as 26 or 30.

The table can add more rows. In Slalom, Obenabe and Undenufe alternate from trick to trick. The player who calls decides which one the round starts with, and the card values of the first trick count for the whole round. In Guschti 5/4 the first five tricks are played in the direction called and the last four the other way round. In the Joker row the player who calls is free to choose what is played. Misère uses the card values of Obenabe, and the calling team scores the points the opponents take. 3×3 is played in three blocks of three tricks. The player who called chooses for the first block, and the players who lead the fourth and the seventh trick choose for the other two.

There is no Weis and no Stöck in Coiffeur, and tricks are played as in Schieber. When every row has been played, the team with the higher total wins.

In Differenzler everyone plays for themselves. Nobody calls trump: it is drawn, and it is always one of the four suits, so there is no Obenabe or Undenufe. The player to the dealer’s right leads the first trick, and in the first round that is whoever holds the Seven of Roses.

Before the first trick each player predicts how many points they will take, a number from 0 to 157. Nobody can change their prediction afterwards. Normally you see only your own prediction, and the others are revealed when the round is scored. The table can also be set so that every prediction is visible straight away.

Play is as in Schieber. You follow the suit led or you trump. If you can’t follow suit, you may play any card, even a lower trump. There is no Weis, no Stöck and no bonus for a Match.

At the end of the round, the difference between each player’s prediction and the points they took counts as minus points for them. Between them, the four players always take 157 points, including the five for the last trick.

You play an agreed number of rounds. Usually that is twelve, and it is always a multiple of four so that everyone deals the same number of times. At the end the player with the fewest minus points wins.

In Molotow everyone plays for themselves, and the aim is turned around: you want to take as few points as possible. Nobody calls trump. The round starts as Obenabe, and the player to the dealer’s right leads. In the first round that is whoever holds the Seven of Roses, even at a table of five.

Molotow is for three to six players. Everyone gets twelve cards at a table of three, nine at a table of four, seven at a table of five and six at a table of six. With five players the Seven of Acorns is left out so that the 35 cards divide evenly.

The play decides trump

The first time someone can’t follow suit, the card they play makes its suit trump. It already counts as trump in that trick, and everyone who plays after it follows the trump rules straight away. If everyone can follow suit for the whole round, the round stays Obenabe to the end.

The Eights never count in Molotow. As long as there is no trump, every card counts as in a plain suit, so the Under is worth 2 points and the Nine nothing. Once trump is decided, the tricks already taken are counted with that trump too, and the round is worth 157 points. A round that never gets a trump, which can only happen with three players, is worth 125 points.

You have to follow suit as always. But because every trick hurts here, the game is played ‘hindersi’, as Swiss players say: if you don’t have the suit led, you may trump at any time, even with a lower trump than the one already on the table.

Weis

Your own Weis, which you declare with your first card, is taken off your score as minus points. Normally nothing is compared, and every player scores all of their Weis. The table can also have the Weis compared the way they are in Schieber. Then only the player with the highest Weis scores minus points, and they score all of their Weis.

Sometimes the cards in a trick form a Weis, for example three cards of one suit in a row or four of a kind. The player who takes the trick then gets this Tischweis as plus points. A player who still holds both the King and Ober of trump when trump is decided gets 20 minus points for Stöck. But if the King and Ober of trump land in the same trick, they count as a Tischweis and give the player who takes the trick 20 plus points. A trick that was finished before trump was decided gives no Stöck.

Points and end of the game

At the end of the round each player scores the points in their tricks plus their Tischweis. Their Handweis, the Weis they declared from their own hand, is taken off that total, and so is their Stöck. This total is written in tens, rounded, and it is rounded only once for the whole round. So 47 points are written as 5. A player who takes every trick has a Match. They score −257 instead of the points in their tricks, and their Tischweis, Handweis and Stöck still count on top. A Match without any Weis or Stöck is written as −26 after rounding.

You play to an agreed limit, which is 100 written points by default on wyys.ch. That corresponds to 1,000 counted points. The round in which someone reaches or passes the limit is still scored in full. The player with the fewest points at the end wins.

The table can set how many people play and the score you play to. It can also choose whether every player scores their own Weis or only the player with the highest Weis, and whether a Weis that ends up in a trick scores at all. Weis and Stöck can also be switched off completely. There are no multipliers, no Bergpreis and no Schieben in Molotow.

The blog has a longer article on each game, with examples and tips.

• Jass in Switzerland: in the pub, at the club and at tournaments
• How playing Jass on wyys.ch works
• Schieber rules in plain English
• Coiffeur Jass: rules, chart and variations
• Differenzler rules: predict your points and hit them
• Molotow Jass: rules for the game where the fewest points win
• Weis and Stöck in Jass: all the points and rules
• Our bots: how the Jass bots on wyys.ch play