Card ranking

In Bavarian Tarock, a card's trick-taking value generally increases with its face value. The Ace (Aß) or Sow (Sau), symbol A, is the highest card and it is followed by the: Ten (Zehner) (10) > King (K) > Ober (O) > Unter (U) > Nine (Neuner) (9) > Eight (Achter) (8) > Seven (Siebener) (7) > Six (Sechser) (6)

Card values

The cards have the same point values as in Bavarian Schafkopf. The 10, with ten card points, is just below the Ace (11 points), but well above the King (4), Ober (3) and Unter (2). The value of the Spatzen ("sparrows" – 9 to 6) lies only in their trick-taking ability during a game, but they have no points value when calculating scores at the end of the round.

Trumps

In the original game, Hearts formed the permanent trump suit unless a Solo was bid. In the later variant, Hearts are the permanent trump suit if the talon is used to replenish cards; otherwise in Hand contracts, the trumps are chosen by the declarer. In the complex version of the game, the trump suit is chosen by the declarer; all nine cards of the chosen suit are trumps and the sequence within the trump suit is unchanged. There are no permanent trump cards in this version, as for example, in Skat, Doppelkopf or Schafkopf.

Tarock (simple)

The following is a summary of the rules for the simple, contract-bidding game. The winner of the auction plays alone against two defenders and must achieve the stated contract by scoring at least 61 points. Settlement may be based on overshoot payments as in German Tarok or using fixed payments as in early 20th-century Tarock.^[11]

Each player draws a card from the pack. The player with the highest card (or first Ace) deals first. The dealer shuffles, offers the cut to his right, and places 3 cards as the talon, called the Gschdaad or gstaat, on the table. The dealer then deals 11 cards each in packets (4 – 3 – 4). There are three possible contracts and, in every case, the declarer must score at least 61 points to win. Scoring 91 or more is a Schneider and taking all tricks is a Durch. In a Frage the declarer exchanges 3 cards with the Gschdaad; in either Solo contract, it remains untouched. The Gschdaad or discards belong to the declarer at the end. The contracts are summarised below in ascending order:

Bavarian Tarock (simple)
Name of contract	Exchange with stock	Trumps	Point-based payments	Fixed payments (alternative system)
Frage	Yes		Simple win: ½c/point Durch: 60c	Simple win: 25c Schneider: 30c
Solo	No		Simple win: 1c/point Durch: 120c	Simple win: 50c Schneider: 60c
Herzsolo	No		Simple win: 1c/point Durch: 120c	Simple win: 50c Schneider: 60c

Forehand opens the bidding with "pass" or "I'll play" ("ich spiele"). If unchallenged, he may announce any contract. A subsequent player wishing to overcall the first bidder says "I'll play better" ("Ich spiele besser"); thus committing to a Solo or Herzsolo. To overcall the second bidder, rearhand (the dealer) must announce "I'll play best" ("Ich spiele am besten"), but may then only play a Herzsolo. An earlier bidder may "hold" a higher subsequent bid. There is only one round of bidding with immediate hold.

Forehand leads to the first trick. Players must follow suit or trump if unable to follow, but there is no compulsion to head the trick. If they can neither follow nor trump, they may play any card. The trick is won by the highest card of the led suit or highest trump if any are played. The two defenders keep their tricks in a single pile.

The declarer must score 61 to win. If both sides score 60, the game is drawn and no payments are made. There are two alternative payment systems:^[11]

• Point-based payments. Players contribute an agreed amount to a pot, (Kasse) at the start of the session. If a game is won, the declarer collects the winnings from the pot; if it is lost the declarer pays directly to the two defenders who divide the winnings. The rate for a Solo or Heart Solo is double that of a Frage. For simplicity, payments are usually rounded up to the nearest 5ȼ. A declarer who wins every trick makes a Durch and collects double. In the following examples, the tariff is assumed to be ½c/point for a Frage and 1c for a Solo or Heart Solo.

Example 1: Anton wins a Frage with 71 points. There are 11 overshoot points worth 11c, so this is rounded up and he collects 15c from the pot.

Example 2: Anton loses his Heart Solo to Berta and Charlotte, scoring 50 points. He pays 10ȼ to the two defenders who receive 5ȼ each. Had he scored 49, he would have paid 15ȼ and an additional 5ȼ would have been drawn from the pot in order that Berta and Charlotte could each receive 10ȼ.

Example 3: Charlotte wins a Leaf Solo, taking every trick. She has 60 overshoot points worth 60 x 1c = 60c, but this is doubled to €1.20 for the Durch which she collects from the pot.

• Fixed payments. Sirch describes an alternative system in which there is no pot and players pay one another directly. So a simple Solo or Heart Solo win (61-90 points) earns 50ȼ from each defender and a schneider (91 or more points) earns 60ȼ from each. If the declarer loses, the amount is paid to each defender. A Frage is worth half these payments.

Tarock (with Bettel)

The simple version of Tarock may be played with a Bettel contract; an optional feature that emerged during the interwar period. It is a misère-type contract in which the declarer aims to lose every trick; this is found in many other games including Skat (under the name Null) and Bavarian Schafkopf. As before, there are 3 players who use a 36-card Bavarian pattern pack. Deal and play are clockwise. There are typically five bids which, in ascending order, are:

• Frage (Stockspiel in den übrigen Farben)
• Heart Frage (Stockspiel in Herz)
• Solo (Handspiel in den übrigen Farben)
• Heart Solo (Handspiel in Herz)
• Bettel

In a Bettel, the declarer may not take any tricks and card points are not counted. It is only worth playing if a player has mainly blanks^{[lower-alpha 2]} (Spatzen or "sparrows") and/or is void^{[lower-alpha 3]} (frei) in one suit - in order to be able to discard individual high cards at one's leisure. Also the ranking of the card values changes: the 10 becomes 'low', i.e. it ranks between the Unter and the 9 in each suit. Otherwise, the ranking of the cards remains the same. There is no trump suit and players must follow suit without exception (known as Farbzwang). A Bettel is the highest ranking contract and winning it earns four times the basic game stake.

Bavarian Tarock or Haferltarock

Since the Second World War, a point-bidding variant of Bavarian Tarock has emerged and is the one recorded in the majority of game books. This is referred to by Dummett as Haferltarock, although that term has been used since the 1880s for variants of classic Tarock played with a pot, but without point bidding.^[6] The following rules are based on Danyliuk.^[12]

Preparation and dealing is as above except that players contribute an agreed amount such as 50 cents to the Haferl ("pot"). The dealer then deals four cards to each player, then three cards, then three to the stock and finally a further four cards to each player. Players pick up their hands and bidding proceeds clockwise, commencing with forehand. Each player may "pass" (Ich passe) or announce the minimum legal contract. The first positive bid is announced by "play" or "I'll play" (Ich spiele) which is an offer to play the lowest contract, known as an Aufnahmespiel or "Pick-Up". This may be outbid by a subsequent player announcing "I'll play too" (Ich spiele auch), which is an offer to play a Handspiel or "Hand" contract. The earlier bidder may bow out by saying "pass" or hold by saying "I'll play on" or "I'm playing first" (Ich spiele vorn). Bidding passes back and forth between the first two players to announce a bid until one of them passes. Only then may the third player enter the bidding by announcing a higher bid than the highest to that point

The meaning of the two contracts is as follows:

• Pick-Up or Frage (Stockspiel, Aufnahmespiel, Hineinschauen, Fragespiel). The declarer undertakes to win at least 61 points 'with' the stock i.e. by picking it up and exchanging up to 3 cards with it; the discards counting towards his score. The declarer then chooses trumps. In another variant, which resembles the earliest rules, Hearts (Bavarian: Herz-Neischaugn) are the only trump suit permitted for this contract.
• Hand (Handspiel). The declarer undertakes to win at least 61 points 'without' picking up the stock i.e. he will play from his hand only. He puts the stock to one side, unseen, where it will counts towards his score at the end. He announces straight away which suit will be trumps.

The added complexity of this modern variant is the ability to bid still higher. Essentially, once a Hand contract is bid; bidding may continue in steps of five. For example, a player may say "And five" or "Five more" (Fünf mehr), which means that 66 points is the target needed to win. His opponent may outbid this with "And ten" or "Ten more" (Zehn mehr), setting 71 points as the target. This continues until one of the players passes.

If no-one bids or chooses a contract, the cards are thrown in and redealt by the next player.

Play is clockwise as before. Forehand leads to the first trick. Players must follow suit (Farbzwang), failing that they must play a trump (Trumpfzwang).^{[lower-alpha 4]} Only if the player no longer has any trumps may he discard any card. The trick is won by the highest trump if any are played or by the highest card of the led suit if no trumps are played.

Once the last trick has been played, players tot up the card points in their tricks. The declarer needs 61 points to win; otherwise the defenders have won, even if the score is 60-60. Payment is as follows:

• Pick-Up
  • Declarer wins:
    • 61-65 points: 5 cents from the pot
    • every additional point: +1 cent from the pot
  • Declarer loses:
    • 56-60 points: 5 cents to one defender; the other defender takes 5 cents from the pot
    • every point below 56: -1 cent to one defender; the other defender takes 1 cent from the pot
• Hand: all games are paid directly from the loser(s) to the winner(s) at double the above rate

The round ends when the pot is emptied.

In some places there is a tradition, that a player who is not forced to bid by the opposition, may raise the bid himself. But in self-bidding, the contract must be played as a Hand, i.e. the stock may not be used. If the number of points announced by the declarer is not achieved, he loses the round.

Berliner

With the so-called Berliner, only the dealer is allowed to play a game using the stock. The other players may only declare a Hand contract. At the same time it is sometimes agreed that the dealer may only play with hearts as the trump suit in a contract where the stock is viewed.

Sharp Tarock

The famous Bavarian author, Ludwig Thoma, played something called 'Sharp Tarock' (Scharfer Tarock) which may have involved a shortened pack.^[13] In 2018, Stefan Vogl published a Tarock app with such a pack. This largely follows the intermediate rules above, but uses just 24 cards (from Ace to Nine) and players are dealt a hand of seven cards each. Players bid in clockwise rotation, beginning with forehand, and the first to bid "play" becomes the declarer unless a subsequent player nominates Hearts as the trump suit, in which case the latter has precedence. If two players want to bid in Hearts, the first wins. If only one player bids and plays in Hearts, that player has the option of playing a Frage whereby the Stock may be viewed and up to 3 cards exchanged. In a Frage, the game value is halved if the declarer wins, but is paid as a Solo if the game is lost. Players start with 10 euros each and 61 points are needed to win; if the declarer scores 60, the game is lost. A Solo or Herzsolo is valued at 10 cents. In addition there is an extra 10 cents for winning schneider and 10 cents for schwarz (winning all tricks and 120 points). These rates are paid to the declarer by each defender if the contract is won, or by the declarer to each defender if it is lost. In a Frage these values are halved if the declarer wins; if he or she loses, the full Solo value is paid out. For example, a declarer winning a Herzsolo with 91 points earns 10 (for the win) + 10 (for the Schneider) = 20 cents from each defender; had it been a Frage the declarer would have earned 5 + 5 = 10 cents from each defender. If the declarer had lost by the same margin, in both cases, the defenders would receive 20 cents each. The cards in the Stock always belong to the declarer which means the declarer cannot lose Schwarz unless there are three 9s in the Stock.^[14]