When Nobody Picks
Sooner or later the blind goes all the way around and nobody wants it. Every table needs an answer, and which one a house uses says a lot about how they play. These are the four common ones.
Doubler
The hand is thrown in and the next one plays at doubled stakes. Nothing is scored, nobody plays a card, and the pressure moves to the following deal, where a hand nobody would have picked at single stakes suddenly looks worth it. This is the default here.
Leaster
Everyone for themselves, and fewest points wins. You must take at least one trick, and the blind goes to whoever takes the last trick. If two or more players tie for fewest, they all win, and each of them collects from every player who did not. A leaster inverts the whole game: aces and tens turn into liabilities, the queens you were proud of become a problem, and the winning line is usually to duck everything and take one cheap trick early. None of your ordinary instincts survive it.
The trick requirement is what makes it a game rather than a race to the bottom. Take nothing at all and you cannot win, so pure ducking loses too.
Dealer stuck
The dealer is forced to pick the blind and play it out. No escape on the button. It is the strictest option and it keeps hands moving, at the cost of handing the dealer a hand nobody else wanted.
Schwanzer
The one most players outside a few clubs have never met. The hand is not played at all. As soon as the dealer passes, every hand is counted for trump, and whoever was sitting on the most of it pays everyone a point for having passed with the goods. The biggest mauerer pays.
| Card | Counts |
|---|---|
| Queen (any) | 3 |
| Jack (any) | 2 |
| Any other trump | 1 |
| Fail cards | 0 |
Ties go to whoever holds the single highest trump, which always resolves, because two players cannot hold the same card.
Every player's count is shown at the end. Nobody sees a card in a schwanzer, so the count is the only thing you can check the result against, and a number nobody can check is exactly what this site does not do.
Which one should a table use?
Doubler keeps the night flowing and raises the stakes on its own. Leaster gives you a real hand to play instead of a throwaway. Dealer stuck punishes a passive table. Schwanzer punishes the specific player who was hiding, which is a different thing entirely, and clubs that use it tend to be emphatic about it.
Set it on your table
All four are available here. Doubler is the default, and leaster, dealer stuck and schwanzer are each a setting under “all pass” when you open a private table, so your group can play the way it already plays. Leaster tactics get proper treatment on the strategy page, and the variants page maps the rest of the house rules.