How to Play Klaverjas
Description
The Dutch partnership game where the Jack is the highest trump, the Nine is second, and knowing when to lead your Boor is the entire game.
Also known as: Klaverjassen
Objective
Team up with the player across from you and score the most points across a set of deals, mainly through card values won in tricks.
Setup
Four players in fixed partnerships, using a 32-card deck — just 7 through Ace in each suit.
Deal eight cards to each player. A trump suit is set at the start of each deal — either turned up from the leftover cards, or chosen by whoever leads.
Rules
Follow suit if you can. If you can't, you generally must play trump — and beat the highest trump on the table if possible, unless your partner is already winning the trick.
Trump cards rank unusually: Jack highest, then 9, then Ace, 10, King, Queen, 8, 7. Other suits rank normally: Ace, 10, King, Queen, Jack, 9, 8, 7.
Before the first trick, players can declare card combinations held in hand — runs of three or more in a suit, or four of a kind — for bonus points, on top of whatever their side scores from cards won in tricks.
Winning every trick in a deal is a march, worth a large bonus.
Winning
Add up trick points, declared combinations, and any march bonus at the end of each deal.
Play continues for an agreed number of deals (traditionally sixteen, so everyone deals the same number of times) — highest total at the end wins the match.