What are the Obenabe and Undenufe rules in Jass?

What can the forehand choose in Jass?

The forehand chooses a suit as trump, Obenabe, or Undenufe. That decision fixes the card order, the card values and the multiplier written for the round. The contract therefore affects every trick and every scoring entry from the opening lead to the final entry on the Jasstafel, the Jass score board.

A suit contract makes the selected suit trump. The other suits remain plain suits and use a different strength order and value schedule. A trump card can beat a card from a plain suit when the trick contains one, so the choice gives one suit a power that the other suits do not have. The chosen suit also contains the special trump Under, called the Puur, and the special trump nine, called the Nell.

Obenabe and Undenufe name no trump suit. Obenabe means that the ace is high in every suit. Undenufe reverses the ladder so that the six is high and the ace is low in every suit. Both contracts therefore apply one strength order across all suits rather than creating one privileged suit.

The choice belongs to the forehand in the standard Schieber, a partnership form of Jass in which the forehand determines the contract after the deal. The wider rules for passing or retaining a hand belong to Schieber. Once the contract has been selected, the contract rules remain clear: a suit contract has one trump suit, Obenabe has ace high, and Undenufe has six high.

Use the contract together with the card values. Strength decides which card wins a trick. Card value decides how many card points the winning side collects from that trick. For example, a card can take a trick because it is high in the contract order while another card can contribute more card points when captured. Those are separate qualities, and sound play requires you to track both.

How does a trump suit change the card order?

A trump contract places the chosen suit above every plain suit and gives that suit a special order. From strongest to weakest, the trump order is Under, nine, ace, king, Ober, ten, eight, seven and six. The trump Under is the Puur, and the trump nine is the Nell. The Puur stands above every other trump, while the Nell stands immediately below it.

A trump Puur beats every other trump. A trump Nell beats every trump except the Puur. The ace follows the Nell, then the king, Ober, ten, eight, seven and six. This order applies only to the selected suit. A Puur in a plain suit is not the highest card in that suit, and a plain-suit nine is not the Nell.

The plain suits keep a separate order during a trump contract. From strongest to weakest, the order is ace, king, Ober, Under, ten, nine, eight, seven and six. The plain-suit Under is therefore below the Ober and above the ten. It does not receive the special strength of the trump Puur, and it does not receive the Puur’s card value.

Consider a trick led in a plain suit. A plain-suit ace is the strongest card in that suit, but a player who is void in the led suit may use a trump under the applicable trick rules. The trump card can then win the trick even when the led suit contains its ace. In a trick led in the trump suit, the Puur and Nell must be read using the trump order rather than the plain-suit order.

The choosing trump page sets out the wider judgement behind a contract choice. The essential rule is the division between the selected suit and the remaining suits. The selected suit uses the Puur–Nell–ace order, while every plain suit uses the ace–king–Ober order. Keeping those ladders separate prevents the most common ranking errors.

How are trump and plain-suit card values scored?

A trump contract gives the chosen suit a special card-value schedule as well as a special strength order. The trump Under, or Puur, is worth 20 points, and the trump nine, or Nell, is worth 14. The trump ace is worth 11, the ten is worth 10, the king is worth 4 and the Ober is worth 3. The other trump cards carry no card points, and the trump suit totals 62 points.

Plain suits use another schedule while a suit contract is active. In each plain suit, the ace is worth 11, the ten is worth 10, the king is worth 4, the Ober is worth 3 and the Under is worth 2. The remaining plain-suit cards carry no card points, and each plain suit totals 30 points. The plain Under therefore has a small card value compared with the trump Puur, even though both cards are Under cards.

The card-value table gives the complete list, but the relationship between strength and value deserves attention. The trump Nell is second in strength yet worth 14 points. The trump ace is lower in strength but worth 11 points. A player may want to win a trick because of the card’s value, because of its position in the order, or because taking the trick prevents an opponent from collecting a valuable card.

Every contract places exactly 152 card points in the pack. Under a trump contract, the total is made from 62 points in the trump suit and 30 points in each plain suit. The distribution changes when the contract changes, but the total remains fixed.

Suppose one side captures the trump Puur and a plain-suit ace in the same trick. The side receives the card points from both cards, not only the value of the card that won the trick. A trick with a lower winning card can therefore contain more points than a trick won by a high but low-value card. The card-values reference helps separate the winning order from the points collected.

What are the card order and values in Obenabe?

Obenabe makes the ace the strongest card in every suit and has no trump suit. From strongest to weakest, every suit follows the order ace, king, Ober, Under, ten, nine, eight, seven and six. A card from another suit cannot become a trump card because Obenabe gives no suit that status.

The Obenabe card values differ from those in a trump contract. In each suit, the ace is worth 11 points, the ten is worth 10, the eight is worth 8, the king is worth 4, the Ober is worth 3 and the Under is worth 2. The nine, seven and six carry no card points. Each suit totals 38 points, so the pack contains exactly 152 card points.

The eight shows why strength and value must be read separately. The eight ranks below the nine in Obenabe, yet the eight is worth 8 points while the nine is worth nothing. The ace is both the highest card and worth 11 points. The ten is below the Under in strength but carries 10 points, so a player may need to protect it even when the ten cannot currently win a trick.

No trump card can rescue a player who lacks the led suit. The winning card must come from the led suit, and the highest card in that suit is the ace. For example, if a suit is led and one player holds its ace, that ace beats the king, Ober, Under, ten, nine, eight, seven and six of that suit. Cards from other suits do not overtake the ace merely because they are high in their own suits.

Obenabe therefore rewards a different hand assessment from a suit contract. Aces can control their suits, while tens and eights can carry substantial card value without being the highest cards. The Schieber setting may influence the choice made by the forehand, but the Obenabe rules remain fixed: ace high, no trump suit, 38 points in each suit and 152 points in the pack.

What are the card order and values in Undenufe?

Undenufe reverses the ordinary card ladder and has no trump suit. From strongest to weakest, every suit follows the order six, seven, eight, nine, ten, Under, Ober, king and ace. The six is therefore the highest card in every suit, while the ace is the lowest.

The Undenufe card values also follow a schedule distinct from Obenabe. In each suit, the six is worth 11 points, the ten is worth 10, the eight is worth 8, the king is worth 4, the Ober is worth 3 and the Under is worth 2. The nine and seven carry no card points, and the ace carries no card points. Each suit totals 38 points, giving the pack exactly 152 card points.

The strongest card is not always the most valuable card in a simple sequence. Under Undenufe, the six is both strongest and worth 11 points. The ten ranks below the nine but is worth 10 points. The eight ranks below the seven but is worth 8 points, while the seven and nine carry no card points. The ace is the weakest card and has no card value, so it can be a useful card to lose when the led suit cannot be avoided.

No suit can act as trump under Undenufe. If a player cannot follow the led suit, that player cannot introduce a trump card to take the trick. The winning card must come from the led suit, using the inverted ladder. For example, a six led in a suit beats every other card of that suit, while an ace loses to every other card of that suit.

Undenufe demands a reversed reading of familiar cards. A six is a control card rather than a weak discard, and an ace is not a natural winner. Timing matters because leading a six can remove an opponent’s strongest card, while holding a ten or eight can protect card points until the suit is established. The schieben rules cover wider passing decisions in the partnership game; the contract itself remains six high, ace low, no trump suit and 38 points per suit.

How does the regional Jass multiplier affect both teams?

The multiplier scales the whole written round for both teams. It applies to points from tricks, Weis, announced combinations of cards, and Stöck, the king-and-Ober combination in the trump suit. The factor does not apply only to the team that selected the contract.

The common multiplier table is the table the app writes by default. Under that table, Eicheln has ×1, Rosen has ×1, Schellen has ×2, Schilten has ×2, Obenabe has ×3 and Undenufe has ×4. The chosen contract determines the factor, while the card order and card values still come from the contract rules.

Multiplier tables are regional, so no single table should be treated as universal. A widely published variant gives both Obenabe and Undenufe ×3. An ascending variant assigns Eicheln ×1, Rosen ×2, Schellen ×3, Schilten ×4, Obenabe ×5 and Undenufe ×6. The common table, the published variant and the ascending variant can therefore produce different written results from the same underlying round.

The factor multiplies the complete written round rather than only the card points won in tricks. If one team records trick points together with Weis or Stöck, the selected factor applies to all eligible parts of that team’s score. The same factor applies to the other team’s eligible score. A contract with a higher factor therefore changes the written effect of every eligible scoring component for both sides.

Keep trick calculation and multiplier selection as separate steps. First determine which cards won each trick and add the card points collected by each team. Then include eligible Weis and Stöck, and apply the regional factor to the whole written round. The tool trick reference helps with the first part of that process. The app’s default table is the common table, but players using another regional convention should read the factors for that convention before writing the score.