The Penguin Book of Card Games: Everything You Need to Know to Play Over 250 Games (108 page)

Cards Kaiserspiel is properly played with a 40-card pack consisting

of King, Ober, Unter, Banner, and numerals 765432 in suits of

acorns, shields, flowers and (hawk-)bel s. The symbols and

abbreviations used here, with their Anglo-American equivalents are:

acorns

clubs

King K King

flowers spades

Ober O Queen

shields hearts

Unter U Jack

bell

diamonds Banner B Ten

Preliminaries Four players in fixed partnerships. Deal one card to

each player. Whoever gets the lowest, or the first dealt of equal

cards, deals to the first hand after shuf ling and cut ing. The dealer

and eldest hand are the captains of their respective partnerships, for

purposes explained below.

Rank of cards In common suits, cards rank KOU(B)765432. The

Banners may be promoted to Kaisers, in which case they belong to

the ‘special’ suit. The suit chosen to be special varies from deal to

deal, and some of its cards are equivalent to trumps.

Cards of the special suit (indicated †), and Banners if promoted to

Kaisers, rank in the fol owing order and have the powers quoted.

King-beaters B (Mugg) these beat any common card or lower trump

†5

†U (Joos)

†6

†2

B (Blass)

Ober-beaters †3

these beat any commoner but are beaten by the

B

King of the suit led

Unter-

†4

these beat any commoner but are beaten by the

beaters

B (Wydli) King or Ober of the suit led