Kontra & Re
Who may call, when the window shuts, and what it does not change.
A contract stands, and you think your side wins it. Then you say Kontra — a word, not a card. It doubles what the hand costs. That is all it does, and it is the thing nearly every beginner reads wrong first.
Open the lesson in the app
“Officially” it is called Stoß
In the “official” rules the call is a Stoß. Kontra is the word this app shows, and the one used at most tables. No card is played for it: you simply say it, and the hand goes on exactly as before.
The defending side only — and once
Any member of the defending party may say Kontra. The declarer may not — nobody doubles their own game. And in a Sauspiel neither may the holder of the called Ass — the “official” rules list that outright as a violation. In a Hochzeit the same goes for whoever accepted the marriage.
And: one Kontra per hand. The first one closes the door; the other defenders do not get a turn at it.
Even when it is not your turn
The “official” rules open the window wider than you would guess: a Kontra may come before or after the first card is led — and out of turn. And what closes the window is not your hand but the second card of the first trick. For everyone at once.
Said honestly: against bots you are only offered the Kontra when it is your turn anyway — the app plays the bot moves in sequence and cannot be interrupted. The rule is wider than the button.
The money — and nothing else
This is the misreading the lesson exists for: a Kontra moves no threshold at all. The “official” rules say so outright — the declaring party still needs 61 to win and 31 to escape Schneider. “Spieler bleibt Spieler.”
Twice as expensive, exactly as hard. Anyone who thinks a Kontra raises the declarer’s target is misreading the whole hand.
The answer — and who may give it
The declaring side may answer a Kontra with a Re — the declarer himself or his called partner. And that too must come before the second card. In this app the Re is an immediate response step: after a Kontra the declaring party gets exactly one decision, then play resumes. Another ×2, and there is only one of those as well — no Sup, no Ra.
And here is the part that is teaching, not rules: a partner who says Re has just shown himself. Until then nobody knew who held the called Ass. Now they do.
A rule of thumb: 2 of the top 4 — or 6 trumps
Against an ordinary contract: say Kontra if you hold 2 of the top 4 trumps or simply 6 trumps. Against a Tout the arithmetic changes — the question is not “can we win” but “can we take one trick”: one top trump is enough, or a Sau in a suit you hold a second card of.
A rule of thumb, not a rule — but the one the other players compute. And saying it costs something: in a Sauspiel a Kontra announces that you are not the called partner.