Toepen strategy and tips

Toepen is a game of cards, odds and nerve. No tip wins every game, and that is just as well. But some choices keep coming back: which card to keep, when to toep, when to fold and when to check a vuile was. Here they are, each with how Toep's computer makes them. It plays at three levels, and the choices of those three are a good mirror for your own game.

Not quite sure of the rules yet? Read the rules first.

The last trick counts

Only whoever wins the fourth trick wins the round. The first three tricks are not a goal in themselves: mostly they decide who starts the next trick and which cards are still in play.

Three habits follow from that:

Keep your highest card for the end. A ten in the first trick wins a trick that earns nothing. The same ten in the last trick can win the round.
Win early tricks as cheaply as possible. If you can win a trick, use the lowest card that still does it.
If you cannot win, throw away your lowest card. A card that will not take the trick is better gone than a card that might still do something later.

That is how the computer plays on normal: when it starts a trick, it leads its second-best card, so it can take an early trick and the lead without spending its best card. In the last trick it throws everything in.

Counting cards

There are only 32 cards, eight of each suit. That makes counting quite doable. A card is unbeatable as soon as every higher card of its suit has been played or is in your own hand. If you hold the 9 of hearts and the 10 of hearts has already fallen, your 9 wins every trick in which hearts is led.

Keep an eye on:

which cards fell in the previous tricks;
who could not follow a suit, because that player has none of it left;
the open cards of anyone caught bluffing a vuile was.

The computer on hard does exactly this. It keeps track of which higher cards it has not yet seen, prefers to start a trick with a card nobody can beat any more, and as the last player in a trick wins with the cheapest card that wins for certain.

When to toep

A toep makes the round worth one mark more, for everyone who calls, including you. So toep when you expect to win the last trick, or when you expect the others to fold.

With a strong hand. Two high cards, nines or tens, are reason for the computer on normal to toep, as long as the round is still worth less than three marks.
With certainty. The computer on hard toeps when it holds two cards nobody can beat any more.
Later in the round. You may toep in any trick, including the last. After a few tricks you know much more about the cards that are left. A toep when you are certain to win the last trick costs nobody but your opponents.
As a bluff. Whoever folds pays the old amount anyway. Against cautious players a toep with a bad hand can work. The computer on hard does that now and then.

Remember that whoever toeped last may not toep again straight away. If you toep, someone else can toep back, and then you decide whether to call.

Call or fold

Folding costs the old number of marks, calling risks the new one. So the question is always: how likely am I still to win the last trick?

Call if one of your cards can only be beaten by one unseen card. That is how the computer on hard chooses: as long as it holds such a card, it calls.
If folding would take you to the limit, always call. You would be out anyway, so play for the chance. The computer on normal and hard always does.
Watch your boxes. With the small players ranking, every fold fills a box. Once they are full you must call the next toep, whatever cards you hold. The others see your boxes too. So do not drop out with every middling hand.
Your card stays. If you already played a card in this trick and then fold, that card still counts in the trick.

Vuile was: calling, bluffing, checking

Calling a vuile was with a genuine hand is almost always wise: four low cards hardly ever win a trick, and you get four new ones. The computer calls a genuine vuile was at every level.

Bluffing is a gamble. If nobody checks, you get new cards and nobody ever sees what you had. If you are checked, it costs you a mark and you play the round with open cards, and the latter is often worse than the mark. The computer on hard sometimes bluffs, but only with a hand that could win nothing anyway. In a dead man's round and a super toep you may not bluff.

Checking costs you a mark if the vuile was was genuine. So look at your own hand. There are sixteen low cards: the jack, queen, king and ace of every suit. The more of them you hold, the fewer are left for the caller, and the likelier a bluff is. That is how the computer on hard checks: the more low cards it holds itself, the sooner it checks. If the table allows a vuile was with a 7, more genuine hands are possible and checking is riskier.

Keep your jack

A jack is the lowest card, but in the last trick it can be worth gold: win that trick with a jack and the marks count double for everyone still in. That only works if the jack is the highest card of the suit led. If you start the last trick with a jack of a suit nobody else has left, the trick is yours.

So keep track of which suits the others can no longer follow. In the Leer toepen game you see exactly this: in the last trick you lead the jack of hearts, nobody has hearts left, and the others pay double.

On the edge and the dead man's round

If someone else is on the edge, in their dead man's round you choose between playing for 2 and sitting out for 1 certain mark. With a weak hand, sitting out is usually the sensible choice; the computer on normal and hard sits out when its cards are low on average. With a strong hand, playing is your chance to put the dead man out of the game.

If you are the dead man, you must win the round. You start yourself and nobody can toep, so play the round as one long sum towards the last trick.

Mind: every player gets only one dead man's round. If you are on the edge again later, you cannot sit anything out any more.

How the computer plays

Practising against the computer is a good way to learn the game. The three levels differ like this:

Easy

Plays a random card that is allowed, toeps now and then for no reason and often folds. It does call a genuine vuile was. Good for getting the rules under your fingers without every mistake being punished at once.

Normal

Wins tricks as cheaply as possible, keeps its best card for the last trick, toeps with two high cards and folds a weak hand without nines or tens, unless folding would put it out of the game. It never bluffs a vuile was and checks a caller now and then.

Hard

Counts the cards. Starts with a card nobody can beat any more, toeps when it holds two unbeatable cards and sometimes as a bluff, now and then bluffs a vuile was on a hopeless hand, and checks sooner the more low cards it holds itself.

To look up a word, see the glossary. Which rules you can choose for your own table is under variants.