Schnapsen uses a 20-card deck — Ace, Ten, King, Queen, and Jack in each of the four suits. Card point values: Ace = 11, Ten = 10, King = 4, Queen = 3, Jack = 2. Each player is dealt 5 cards. The remaining 10 cards form the stock, with the bottom card turned face-up to determine the trump suit.
Win tricks to collect card points. The first player to reach 66 card points in a hand and claim victory wins the hand. Win 7 game points across multiple hands to win the match.
While the stock is open, you may play any card — no obligation to follow suit. Once the stock is closed or empty, you must follow suit, must beat the led card if possible, and must trump if you're void in the led suit. The highest card of the led suit wins the trick — unless a trump is played, in which case the highest trump wins. The trick winner draws first from the stock.
Hold a King and Queen of the same suit? On your lead turn (after winning at least one trick), you can declare a Marriage for bonus points: 40 points for a trump marriage, 20 points for any other suit. You then lead one of those two cards.
If you hold the Jack of the trump suit, you can swap it for the face-up trump card at the bottom of the stock — but only on your lead turn, after winning at least one trick, and while the stock is still open.
Before your lead, you can close the stock — committing to reaching 66 without drawing more cards. If you succeed, you win normally. If you fail, your opponent earns 2 or 3 game points.
When you reach 66 or more, tap "Claim 66!" to win the hand. You earn 1 game point normally, 2 if your opponent has fewer than 33 card points, or 3 if your opponent took zero tricks. First to 7 game points wins the match!
Schnapsen (also known as Schnapser or 66) is Austria and Bavaria's most popular two-player card game, dating back to the early 19th century. It combines trick-taking skill with strategic decisions about when to close the stock, declare marriages, and exchange the trump jack. Every hand is a tense duel of memory, timing, and bluff.
This version features 7 AI difficulty levels — from Beginner (plays randomly) to Cyborg (calculates optimal trump play and stock closure timing). Play the daily challenge for the same deal every player gets today, or challenge friends with a shared match link. No download, no sign-up — just play.
Schnapsen is the smallest big game I know — twenty cards, two players, and more tension per hand than games three times its size. Everything in it funnels toward one number: 66. Reach it and declare, and the hand ends on the spot, mid-trick, no appeals. That instant-win threshold changes the entire psychology of the game, and it's where both my proudest build decision and the most common player mistake happen to live.
The build decision first. The AI in this game can close the stock — Schnapsen's signature bluff, where a player snaps the talon shut and commits both players to the cards in their hands, no more drawing for anyone. Deciding when a machine should make that move is a genuinely interesting problem, because closing is a declaration: I can get to 66 from here. My call, and the one I'm proudest of in this build: the AI closes only when it can actually count to 66 from the cards in its hand. No probabilistic bravado, no bluffing on vapors. When this opponent closes on you, the threat is real, which makes the moment land the way it does across a real table — a small jolt, then a hurried recount of everything you've seen fall so far.
And that recount is exactly the skill players neglect. The defining mistake in Schnapsen is misjudging the 66 count. You win the instant you reach 66 — but only if you know you've reached it and declare it. Players lose track, play one more trick than they needed, and hand the initiative away for free. Worse: they declare a marriage — king and queen of a suit, worth 20, or 40 in trump — at a moment when the points connect to nothing, or they close the stock on a hopeful estimate rather than an actual count, and the failed close hands the whole hand's points across the table. In a game this small, arithmetic isn't bookkeeping. Arithmetic is the weapon itself.
So track your points continuously, trick by trick, out loud in your head: aces 11, tens 10, kings 4, queens 3, jacks 2. Know your number at every moment, know the maximum your remaining hand can still add, and close only when hand plus current total reaches 66 without any charity from the deck. A marriage is a finisher, not a flourish — declare it at the moment its 20 or 40 completes a real path to the win.
Twenty cards, and every one of them is load-bearing. That's Schnapsen. The daily deal arrives at midnight, same for everyone. Count like it's money, close like you mean it, and never let 66 arrive without you noticing it did.