Austrian Preference

Players and equipment

Austrian Preference seats three active players, with a fourth welcome at the table: with four, whoever deals a hand sits out of it entirely, and the turn to deal — and so to sit out — passes round the table clockwise; with three, the dealer plays as usual. Use a 32-card pack, French or German suited: ace, king, queen, jack, ten, nine, eight and seven of each suit, and nothing below a seven.

The four suits rank in a fixed order for the bidding, each one standing for a number:

Hearts

4

bidding "hearts" skips the exchange outright

Diamonds

3

-

Spades

2

-

Clubs

1

-

Traditionally you play for something small — coins, or chips if your table prefers — kept in dishes on the table: one in the middle for the shared pot, one in front of each player for their own stake. Playing for nothing works exactly the same way; you just skip the payouts below.

The deal

After a shuffle and a cut by the dealer's right-hand neighbour, deal clockwise: three cards to each active player, two face down to the table — the talon — then four more each and three more each, so every active player holds ten cards. With four at the table, the dealer deals no hand to themselves; with three, the dealer is one of the three.

Before the first deal of a sitting, everyone at the table — the dealer's sitting-out seat included — puts an equal amount into the pot, a multiple of ten so it divides evenly later. When the pot runs dry and the table wants to carry on, everybody tops it up again by the same amount.

Play

The player to the dealer's left bids first, and the bidding passes clockwise. A bid is a number from one to four (naming a suit by its rank above), "game" (declarer without touching the talon, in any suit but hearts), or "hearts" (declarer in hearts without touching the talon, which ends the bidding on the spot). Only the next number up may be bid over a number already on the table — no jumping — and a player already outbid on a number may "hold" rather than raise, matching the new number without naming a higher one. Passing ends your bidding for the hand, and naming a number rules out "game" or "hearts" later, so either has to come at your first turn to speak. A "game" bid loses only to a higher "game" or to "hearts"; two "game" bids reveal their suits, and the higher suit — tied, whoever sits closer to the dealer's left — becomes declarer. If everyone passes, the next dealer deals.

Whoever wins the bidding with a number now picks up the talon's two cards unseen, adds them to their hand, and discards any two cards face down, then announces trumps: the suit their number stands for or any higher one. The two cards leaving the talon are gone for the hand; a "game" declarer never touches the talon at all and announces the suit they bid straight away, and a "hearts" declarer plays in hearts.

Each defender then says, in turn starting on the declarer's left, whether they will play on or drop out. Playing on is a promise to try for two tricks; dropping out gives up on the hand's pot but avoids its penalty. If both defenders drop, the declarer takes every trick with no play at all. If only one stays in, that defender may invite the one who dropped back in as a guest — an invitation that cannot be refused — and the two then share the task of taking four tricks between them, the inviting defender carrying the penalty if they fall short and the guest risking nothing.

Where there is play, the declarer leads to the first trick and the winner of each trick leads the next. You must follow suit if you can; failing that you must play a trump if you hold one; and, within those rules, you must play a card that beats those already in the trick if you can. One extra rule binds the first defender to speak against the declarer's own lead, when both defenders are in: if that defender can beat the card led, they must do so with the lowest card that still wins — no overplaying for show.

Scoring

The traditional way of settling Austrian Preference moves coins, not points, and it is worth knowing before you look at the sheet. Once the ten tricks are played:

Declarer, every hand

10

takes ten from the pot, and pays each defender who stayed in one coin per trick they took (an invited guest's tricks are paid to the host)

Declarer, under six tricks

20

also pays a penalty into the pot

A defender who chose to play, with no invitation, under two tricks

10

pays into the pot

A host defender whose side, with its guest, took under four tricks between them

10

pays into the pot

Hearts bonus, a hearts declarer who played without the talon

10

paid by each opponent on six tricks or more, or paid to each opponent on fewer

Ace bonus, declarer holding all four aces

10

paid by each opponent, only if the declarer also makes six tricks or more

No-ace bonus, declarer with no aces who says so before the first lead

10

paid by each opponent on six tricks or more, or paid to each opponent on fewer

None of that is something SquareScores can see or move — it deals nothing and never touches a card, so the coins stay exactly where they always have, in the dishes on the table. The sheet wants only the number of tricks each player actually took that hand, out of ten, in that player's own column: a plain record of who is winning the cards over the sitting, not a replacement for settling the pot. A four-handed sitting's dealer enters 0 for the hand they sit out; when both defenders drop, the declarer enters 10 and each defender 0; and an invited guest's tricks go in the guest's own column, never the host's — the sheet keeps each player's cards separate even where the pot does not.

A worked hand

Three are playing: Mia, Theo and Priya. Theo, on the dealer's left, bid one, Priya passed and Mia bid two; Theo held at two, Mia went on to three and Theo passed, so Mia is declarer at three and names diamonds. She exchanges the talon and discards her two worst cards. Both Theo and Priya stay in. Mia makes seven tricks to their three between them — Theo two, Priya one — so Mia has her six and more, Theo has made his quota of two, and Priya has fallen one short of hers.

Mia

7

declarer, diamonds

Theo

2

stayed in, made his two

Priya

1

stayed in, fell short

Seven and two and one is ten, every trick accounted for. At the table, Mia takes ten units from the pot and pays Theo two and Priya one; Priya, short of her two tricks, also pays ten into the pot. On the sheet, the host enters 7, 2 and 1 in the three columns.

Ending

A hand ends the moment all ten tricks are played, or the instant both defenders drop and the declarer is handed the lot. There is no fixed line to reach and no "first to" a score — tables play Austrian Preference for as long as the stakes and the company hold out, and the running tally of tricks simply carries on from hand to hand. Whoever has taken the most tricks when the table calls it a day has had the better of the sitting; ending the match is open to any player at the table, whenever everyone is ready to stop.

Bid only what your hand can make

A bid of "game" or "hearts" gives up the talon, so make it only on a hand that can win six tricks unaided. A number bid is a bet on what two unseen cards might do for you — strong in a long suit with the ace or two, weaker on a hand already short of winners.

Use "hold" to see one more card cheaply

Holding costs nothing beyond matching the bid already on the table, and buys another look at how far the bidding goes before you commit to anything higher. A hand worth a cautious "one" is often worth holding at "two" as well; decide at "three" whether the suit is really yours.

Decide early whether you can make two tricks

A defender only learns what the declarer discarded by watching the play unfold, so stay-or-drop has to rest on your own ten cards and the bidding you heard. Two certain winners are worth the risk of the full penalty; one, or none, is usually better dropped — the coin per trick you give up is smaller than the ten you might owe.

Lead through the declarer, not up to them

The two defenders are not partners in the ordinary sense — you each need your own two tricks — but a card that forces the declarer's hand or draws out a trump helps whoever plays next. Leading through the declarer, so your fellow defender sees the trick first, gets more use out of a middling card than leading up to the declarer ever will.

Watch for the aces

Four aces is rare but decisive, since the ace bonus is paid only on the bid being made and costs nothing if it fails; a hand with no aces at all, declared before the first lead, earns the same ten but pays ten to each opponent if you go down, so announce it only when you are confident. Say so at the right moment — the ace bonus is claimed at the end of play, and the no-ace bonus cannot be claimed once the first card has been led.

Other ways to run the pot

Two older methods are still played instead of a fixed, topped-up stake. Under an Unlimited Pot the dealer adds a fixed amount on every hand, the declarer takes the whole pot and pays the defence a tenth of it per trick, and a loser pays back a multiple of the pot. A Limited Pot caps that growth at an agreed ceiling. The Styrian version fixes the stake by the trump suit itself, rising from clubs to hearts, so the suit you bid decides the money too.

Illustrated Preference's extra bids

Some tables allow bids above four: Bettel (exchange the talon, then lose every trick, no trumps), Durchmarsch (exchange the talon, then win every trick, no trumps), and their "open" twins, Plauderer and Offener Durchmarsch, whose declarer plays face up after the first lead. A table that stops at six sometimes plays Sans Atout instead of Durchmarsch — the talon is still exchanged and there are still no trumps, but the player to the declarer's right leads first and the declarer only needs any six tricks running, not all ten in a row. Any of the four may also be bid as a "game", without touching the talon, for double the value.

Kontra and Rekontra

Played alongside the extra bids: once a no-trump contract is announced, each defender in turn may say "Kontra", doubling what passes between that defender and the declarer alone; the declarer may answer "Rekontra", doubling it again. A defender who has already passed on Kontra may not come back in once the other has spoken.

Nachgehen

A companion to the extra bids: if a defender also bid, they may take the contract away from the declarer after the exchange by picking up the declarer's discards and announcing a higher contract themselves — and the original declarer, or the third player if they too had bid, can snatch it back the same way, each time to a still higher contract, often all the way up through Durchmarsch.

Dropping or changing the bonuses

The ace and no-ace bonuses are what tables most often tune to taste: some drop them altogether, some allow them only on a "game" or "hearts" bid, and some keep the four-ace bonus but drop the no-ace one. Agree which are in play before the cards are dealt, since none of it shows up on the sheet either way.

How many cards do you deal in Austrian Preference?

Ten cards to each of the three active players, with two more set aside face down as the talon — thirty-two cards in all, so nothing is left over.

Can you play Austrian Preference with four players?

Yes, and it is the common way to play: the dealer sits out of their own hand, three others play it, and the turn to deal — and so to sit out — moves round the table so everybody plays three hands in every four.

What happens if neither defender wants to play on?

The declarer is simply handed all ten tricks with no cards played, exactly as if they had won every one. Neither defender owes the two-trick penalty, since dropping out is how a defender avoids it, but a hearts, ace or no-ace bonus is still paid to the declarer by each of them, in or out.

What does "hold" mean in the bidding?

It means matching the number just bid over you without naming a higher one yourself, which is enough to make you declarer if nobody bids past that number again. It is the cheapest way to stay in the bidding without committing further.

Do you win Austrian Preference by taking the most tricks?

Roughly, but not exactly. Tricks decide each hand — the declarer needs six, each defender who stays in needs two — and the sheet's running tally simply counts them up. The payouts and bonuses above move the real money, which the sheet does not calculate, so fewer tricks overall can still mean ahead once they are counted.

What is the ace bonus?

A declarer holding all four aces — talon cards included — is paid an extra ten units by each opponent, but only once they have also made their six tricks — holding all the aces and still failing the bid pays nothing extra either way. The opposite version, the no-ace bonus, must be declared before the first card is led and pays the same ten units each way depending on whether the declarer makes the bid.