Calling the Twenty: Standing

Calling the Twenty (Zwanzigerrufen) · who may say “I hold”, and against whom

Core Concepts teaches standing in one line: each new bid must be higher than the last, and standing is the exception. When someone raises over you and your turn comes around again, you may say “I hold” and take the raised contract for yourself, as long as you have not passed. The Calling the Twenty rules then set the base rule for this game: only the Forehand may say “I hold.” Its Expansions add a wider version, standing by seat, in which every seat may hold against the seats that bid after it.

That is all a first evening needs. This page gives you the rest: the seat order in full, what happens when two seats could hold, whether a hold can itself be held against, how the duel runs when the same contract keeps changing hands, and the words players actually say.

The seat order

Calling the Twenty is dealt and played clockwise, and the Forehand sits to the left of the Dealer. The bidding runs the same way round, and seniority follows the same circle, starting at the Forehand and ending with the Dealer.

Seat	Who	In the base rules	With standing by seat
1	Forehand, left of the Dealer	May hold against everyone.	May hold against everyone.
2	Next player clockwise	Bids higher or passes.	May hold against seats 3 and 4.
3	Next player clockwise	Bids higher or passes.	May hold against the Dealer only.
4	The Dealer	Bids higher or passes.	Holds against no one, and may only ever bid higher.

Read the right-hand column as a one-way street. You may hold against a player who sits after you in this order. Against a player who sits before you, you bid higher or pass.

The rule in five lines

The Forehand has the lowest contract, the Call, from the start, without naming it.
Every bid must name a higher contract than the one before it, with one exception: a player who may hold against the player who made it may simply take it instead, by saying “I hold.”
Holding does not change the contract. It changes who owns it: you now play that same contract, and the player you held against bids higher or passes.
A player who passes is out of the bidding for the rest of the hand and can never hold again.
The bidding ends when one player is left in. That player is the Declarer and plays the contract they last named or held.

If everyone else passes and no one names a contract above the Call, it stays with the Forehand, who then makes the final choice: play the Call, raise to a higher contract on the ladder, or declare the Dodge Round. Whichever they choose, the Forehand is the Declarer.

The words

The call is “I hold” (Ich halte! in German). Say the words rather than simply repeating the contract name, so nobody mistakes your hold for a bid that fails to climb. Some tables say less, or simply tap the table, and the meaning is the same.

Whether a hold can be held against

In the base rules the question never comes up, because only the Forehand may hold, and nobody may hold against the Forehand. Once the Forehand holds, the other player can answer only by climbing the ladder.

With standing by seat it does come up. A hold makes you the owner of the contract, just as a bid does, and the seat rule is the same test for both: a player who sits before you, and who has not passed, may hold against you in turn. So a hold by seat 3 can be taken by seat 2 or by the Forehand, and a hold by seat 2 by the Forehand alone. The main rules print the seat rule and not this consequence in so many words, so agree on it with the seat rule before you play.

That gives the bidding a natural drift: a contract keeps travelling toward the senior seats until it reaches the Forehand, or until everybody else passes. The junior seats are not helpless. They simply have to pay for the contract by naming a bigger one.

When two seats could hold

Only one player acts at a time, and turn order settles it. Bidding continues clockwise, skipping anyone who has passed. When the turn reaches a player who may hold against the current owner of the contract, that player may hold right then. If they do, the contract is theirs for the moment. If they pass instead, they are out, and the chance falls to the next senior seat still in the bidding.

Two seats being entitled to hold is therefore never a deadlock. Whatever the junior of the two takes, the senior one can take back on its next turn.

Repeated holds: the duel

Nothing limits how often the same contract may change hands, and this is where the duel gets its name. Each time a junior seat wants the contract back, they must name something higher. Each time they do, the senior seat may hold again at the new height. The contract climbs the ladder one rung at a time until one of the two lets it go.

That is the whole shape of the duel: a senior seat can never be overtaken at equal height, only outbid.

The ladder in this game runs the Call (1 Victory Point), No-Trump (4 Victory Points), Solo (4 Victory Points) and the announced Valat (12 Victory Points). Solo sits above No-Trump even though the two are worth the same, and the Dodge Round is open only to the Forehand, after everyone else has passed.

Two worked auctions

Auction A, the base rules. The seats in bidding order are the Forehand, P2, P3 and P4, the Dealer.

The Forehand holds the Call from the start and names nothing higher.
P2: “Pass.”
P3: “Solo.” This is a legal raise, since Solo sits above the Call.
P4: “Pass.” Only the Forehand may hold in the base rules, so over a Solo the Dealer could only have bid Valat.
Forehand: “I hold.” The Forehand takes the Solo.
P3: To take it back, P3 must now bid Valat. P3 passes.

The Forehand plays the Solo. Note what happened to P3’s good hand: it was strong enough to bid Solo and not strong enough to promise every trick, so it lost the contract without ever being outbid on the ladder.

Auction B, standing by seat, and a hold that changes hands.

The Forehand holds the Call from the start and names nothing higher.
P2: “No-Trump.” A raise.
P3: “Solo.” Also a raise, because Solo sits above No-Trump on this game’s ladder.
P4: “Pass.”
Forehand: “I hold.” The Forehand takes the Solo.
P2: P2 may not hold against the Forehand. To stay in, P2 must bid Valat. P2 passes.
P3: The same door, and the same answer. P3 passes.

The Forehand plays the Solo. Now change one move: suppose the Forehand had passed after P3’s Solo instead of holding. The Forehand is then out, and the turn reaches P2, who sits before P3 and has not passed. P2 may hold: “I hold.” P2 now owns the Solo, and because the Forehand has already passed, nobody left at the table may hold against P2. P3 must climb to Valat or let it go.

Where the sources agree, and where they do not

Standing is family law rather than a single printed rule, and the versions differ. Say which one you are playing before the cards come out.

The Forehand only. Bernhard Krüpl’s Calling the Twenty rules give the hold to the Forehand alone: the Forehand may match the highest bid and take it. This is the base rule, and it is the safest default at a strange table.
Standing by seat. pagat.com’s rules for the sister game Calling the King (Königrufen) state the general form: during the bidding there is an order of priority starting with the Forehand, and a player with higher priority than the previous bidder need only bid an equal contract, while a player with lower priority must bid higher or pass. The main rules offer this version as their expansion “Standing by seat”.
No standing at all. Several Austrian club and tournament rule sets, including the Tirol course rules and the Possert seminar rules for Calling the King, run a strict bidding in which a contract may only be overcalled by a higher one. At those tables a pass is final and there is no hold. The Calling the King rules play this way too.

So the seat order on this page is real and well attested inside the family, but it is not universal. Treat it as the version for tables that want the duel, not as the one true bidding.

Back to the rules: the Calling the Twenty rules, “The Bidding”, for the base rule, and its Expansions entry “Standing by seat”; Core Concepts, “Standing”, for the right itself.

Sources

Bernhard Krüpl, Tarockania: A Guide to Tarock (webit.at), the Zwanzigerrufen chapter: “If forehand wants to match the highest bid, they have the right to do so.”
pagat.com, Königrufen, Bidding section: positional priority from the Forehand downward, equal bids allowed to the senior seat. pagat.com
German Wikipedia, Zwanzigerrufen: seating, clockwise play, the Forehand left of the Dealer, the bidding round. de.wikipedia.org
tarock.at, Spielstart bis Lizitation (XXer Rufen): the Forehand is the caller and has first choice; later bidders may overcall. tarock.at
tarock.tirol course rules and possert.at seminar rules (strict outbidding, no hold), as the counter-example. tarock.tirol and possert.at