Rules of Jass

Introduction to Coiffeur Jass rules

This page briefly explains the rules for Coiffeur Jass.

Game sequence

Coiffeur is also a partnership Jass game, with the two players sitting opposite each other forming a team. The aim of Coiffeur is to play all trump options once and score as many points as possible. Only the points of the declaring team count. The team with the most points at the end of all the rounds wins.

A multiplier is allocated to each trump. At the end of each round, the number of points achieved are multiplied accordingly. This calls for foresight when planning the choice of trump. In 8-round Coiffeur, each team must play each trump suit, tops-down, bottoms-up, and two Jokers (free choice of trump option) once. In 10-round Coiffeur, one round of Slalom and one round of Guschti 5/4 are played in addition.

Slalom consists of playing tricks alternately tops-down and bottoms-up. In Slalom tops-down, the first trick is always played tops-down. In Slalom bottoms-up, the first trick is always played bottoms-up. In Guschti tops-down, the first five tricks are played tops-down, followed by four tricks bottoms-up, and in Guschti bottoms-up, the first five tricks are played bottoms-up, followed by four tricks tops-down.

Unlike in Schieber, a player does not pass to his partner, but to the player sitting next to him in an anticlockwise direction. If all players pass, the first player will be called on again to declare trumps. He can no longer pass and has to choose trumps. The player who nominates the trump option plays the first card. There are no melds in Coiffeur.

Rules of the game

In Coiffeur, there are clear rules on when a particular suit may be played.

  1. Anyone holding a card of the suit led must play this suit (with the exception of the trump Jack/trump Under).
  2. A player not holding a card of the suit led may play any card (a player can only play a lower trump card if he has nothing but trump cards left in his hand).
  3. A trump may be played at any time instead of following suit.
  4. If a trump is led, the other players must play trumps if they have any. Anyone holding the trump Jack/trump Under and no other trump card may play any other card instead of the trump Jack/trump Under.