Calling the Twenty (Zwanzigerrufen) · doubling, and doubling back
The Calling the Twenty rules keep their base rules free of doubling and give you the short version in their Expansions. A Defender who believes the contract will fail may say “Kontra” before play starts, which doubles the contract’s Victory Points, and the Declarer’s side may answer “Rekontra”, which doubles it again. Kontra can also be said against an announced Pagat Ultimo, and then it doubles that bonus only, not the contract.
This page opens the whole ladder. It covers who may speak at each step, what a Kontra does and does not touch, how the doubling meets the bonuses, how it lands on the score sheet, and what some tables add above Rekontra.
When it happens
The doubling lives in the announcement window, the same moment in which the Trull and the Pagat Ultimo are spoken: after the bidding has ended, and in the Call after the XX has been called, and before the first card is led. Once a card is on the table, the window is shut.
At most tables the talk goes round in turns, as many times round as it takes, and ends when everybody has said “pass” in one full circle. That matters, because a Rekontra only becomes possible after somebody has said Kontra, and every answer needs its own turn to be spoken.
The two steps
Each step is one more doubling, and the two sides take turns. The Defenders open, and the Declarer’s side answers.
| Step | Who may say it | Multiplier |
|---|---|---|
| (no Kontra) | ×1 | |
| Kontra | a Defender | ×2 |
| Rekontra | the Declarer’s side | ×4 |
One player’s Kontra counts for their whole side. If one Defender doubles, every Defender lives with it, and so does the whole Declarer’s side, in the Call both the Forehand and the Partner. Partnerships stand or fall together.
What each doubling actually multiplies
This is the part that surprises visitors. A Kontra doubles the one thing it was aimed at, and nothing else. The contract and each announced bonus are separate bets, and each carries its own ladder.
So a Defender may say “Kontra the Call” and leave an announced Pagat Ultimo alone, or say “Kontra the Pagat” and leave the contract alone. Both are ordinary moves. When you speak, name the target.
- Kontra on the contract doubles the contract’s Victory Points. In Simplified Scoring the winning side, whichever it turns out to be, adds double.
- Kontra on the Pagat Ultimo doubles that bonus alone, on the same terms: whoever earns it adds double, and a failed announcement pays the other side double.
- A silent bonus cannot be doubled. Nobody knows it is being attempted, so only announced bonuses are on the table to be challenged.
- The Trull is never doubled. It is a hand bonus, declared from cards already in one player’s hand, so there is nothing left to dispute.
How it lands in Simplified Scoring
Simplified Scoring is the default, so the arithmetic stays gentle: winners add, losers add nothing, and a doubling simply enlarges what the winners add.
- The Call, no Kontra: each player of the winning side adds 1 Victory Point.
- The Call, Kontra: each player of the winning side adds 2 Victory Points. Kontra does not choose a winner; it only raises what the winners score.
- The Call, Kontra and Rekontra: each player of the winning side adds 4 Victory Points.
- Solo, Kontra: the Solo is worth 8 Victory Points instead of 4. If the soloist reaches 45 Card Points, the soloist adds 8 Victory Points; if not, each of the three Defenders adds 8 Victory Points.
- Solo, Kontra and Rekontra: the Solo is worth 16 Victory Points.
- The Call with an announced Pagat Ultimo, and a Kontra aimed at the Pagat only: the contract still pays its plain 1 Victory Point to the winners, while the Pagat Ultimo pays 4 Victory Points instead of 2 to whichever side it scores for.
Traditional tables settle the same ladder zero-sum, and there the doubling bites in both directions: the losers subtract what the winners add, and a lone Declarer settles three times over, once with each Defender. Win a Solo with a Kontra on it, and you add 24 Victory Points while each Defender subtracts 8 Victory Points.
A worked announcement round
The bidding is over. P1, the Forehand, plays the Call and has called the XX.
- P1: “Pagat Ultimo.” P1 announces the bonus, so it now pays 2 Victory Points instead of 1, and if it fails, each player of the other side adds 2 Victory Points.
- P2: “Kontra the Call, Kontra the Pagat.” P2 is a Defender and doubles both bets, separately.
- P3: “Rekontra the Pagat.” P3 holds the XX, is therefore P1’s secret Partner, and has just said so out loud by answering for the calling side. The Pagat Ultimo now stands at four times its announced value of 2 Victory Points.
- P4: “Pass.”
- P1, P2 and P3 pass in turn, the circle closes, and play begins.
The hand ends with the calling side taking 47 Card Points, more than the 44 it must beat, and P1’s Pagat winning the last trick.
- The contract: won, doubled once. P1 and P3 each add 2 Victory Points.
- The Pagat Ultimo: announced and made, then doubled twice. P1 and P3 each add 8 Victory Points more, 10 Victory Points each in all.
- P2 and P4 add nothing, and take home the useful knowledge that P3 talked themselves out of a secret.
A custom some tables add
Some Austrian tables have one shortcut worth knowing, because it removes a whole category of confusion. When a Defender announces a bonus for their own side, they declare in public that they expect the Declarer’s side to fail, so a Kontra on the contract is treated as spoken along with it. German and English Wikipedia describe it for the bonuses that only make sense against the contract. The main rules do not teach this custom; agree on it before the deal if your table plays it.
Beyond Rekontra: a house variant
The main rules stop at Rekontra, and so does the ladder above. Some tables go further. In Calling the Twenty the names you will hear are Supre, said by the doubting side, and Resupre, the answer to it, and some tables call the Rekontra Retour. The main rules teach none of these steps and print no value for them. Where the family does print higher steps, as Hungarian Tarokk does with its Subkontra, each step doubles once more. Plenty of circles stop at two steps by agreement. Settle your table’s ceiling before the deal, not in the middle of an argument.
The Calling the King page on Kontra covers how far the tables of that game take the ladder.
Back to the rules: the Calling the Twenty rules, Expansions, the entry “Kontra”; and Core Concepts, “Kontra”, where the Kontra is first introduced as the Defenders’ challenge.
Sources
- German Wikipedia, Zwanzigerrufen: Kontra and all its raises (Retour or Rekontra, Supre, Resupre) may be said on the contract and on every announced bonus independently, plus a worked announcement round and the custom that an announcement made against the calling side carries a Kontra with it. de.wikipedia.org
- English Wikipedia, Zwanzigerrufen, the same passages in translation, including “All contracts and bonuses are calculated separately” and partnership solidarity. en.wikipedia.org
- pagat.com, Königrufen, Announcements and Kontra: each step an independent doubling of the contract or of a named bonus. pagat.com
- tarock.at, Spielstart bis Lizitation: each announcement doubled separately, every announcement except the undisputed Trull. tarock.at