Counting Your Game
Before you accept a bid, you need to know what your hand is actually worth. Base value times multiplier — the multiplier comes from how many unbroken top trumps you hold, starting from the Club Jack down.
Club Jack, Spade Jack, Heart Jack, then no Diamond Jack: three unbroken from the top — "mit drei."
Suit game, mit
You hold the Club Jack — the unbroken run starts right at the top. Count how many top trumps you hold in a row before the first gap; that count plus one is your multiplier.
Suit game, ohne
No Club Jack in hand — the run is broken before it starts. Count how many top trumps you're missing in a row from the Club Jack down; that count plus one is your multiplier.
A capped ceiling
Your trumps look decent, but something holds the realistic value below the raw formula — the multiplier alone doesn't guarantee tricks. Bid to the capped number, not the bigger one on paper, or an overbid costs you double.
Strong enough for Hand
Your hand is strong enough to skip the Skat entirely — Hand adds a multiplier, but only pays off if you can genuinely make the tricks without those two extra cards.
Grand, mit
In Grand only the four Jacks are trump — the same mit/ohne counting applies to just that four-card run, starting from the Club Jack.
Grand, ohne
No Club Jack means the Grand's Jack run is broken before it starts — count the missing Jacks from the top the same way a suit game counts them.
Grand, capped
Grand's base value is high (24) — strong Jacks alone can still overstate what the rest of your hand delivers. The capped ceiling is the honest number to bid to.
Grand, strong enough for Hand
Enough sure winners to play Grand without ever seeing the Skat — the highest-value bid this game offers, and the highest-risk one if the count is wrong.
Knowing your ceiling
Every hand has a realistic maximum. Once the bidding climbs past it, the honest move is to pass — chasing a bid you can't make costs double if you lose it.