Glossary

Terms from the world of traditional card games — what they mean, where they come from.

announcement: Also: kontra, double, Kontra, rekontra, Rekontra, redouble; A secondary declaration made before or during play that raises the stakes (typically doubles victory_points).
card_points: Also: pip points, eye count, Kartenpunkte, card points, Augen; Points on cards collected during a round. Counted per-round to determine whether a contract was met.
cavall: Also: knight, Cavalier, Reiter, C, rider; A face-card rank between Jack and Queen, present in Tarot/Tarock decks. Ranks above Jack and below Queen in plain-suit ordering.
close_stock: Also: zudrehen, Talon zumachen, shut the talon; In Schnapsen-family games: a leader-only action that ends phase 1 immediately by flipping the face-up trump face-down on top of the stock. Forces phase-2 trick resolution and is a claim that the closer can reach 66 trick_points before the opponent. Failure incurs a game-point penalty.
contract: Also: bid, declaration, Ansage, Spielansage, commitment; The goal a player commits to before play begins. Determines the target score and victory_point multiplier.
declarer: Also: soloist, contractor, Spieler, bidder, maker; The player who named the winning contract and plays to fulfill it (often alone against defenders).
defender: Also: opponent, Gegenspieler, defender team; Player(s) opposing the declarer. Their goal is to prevent the declarer from meeting the contract.
follow_suit: Also: Farbzwang, bekannt geben; The obligation to play a card of the same suit as the led card if able.
game: Also: rubber, match, session; A full session consisting of multiple rounds. Winner determined by accumulated victory_points.
hand: Also: cards held, Blatt; The cards a player currently holds at any point in a round. NOT a synonym for 'round'.
kitty: Also: talon, skat, crib, blind, stock, widow, Talon; Undealt cards set aside before play. May be available for exchange by the declarer.
lead: Also: Vorhand, opener, attaque; The player who plays the first card to a trick, determining the led suit.
marabu: Also: quapil, Quapil, Marabu, IIII bird, fourth-trump bird; Bonus for winning the fourth-to-last trick by playing the IV trump. Possert (Austrian Königrufen tradition) calls both the IIII trump card and the bonus 'Marabu'; the Czech-influenced tradition calls the bonus 'Quapil'. Functionally identical.
marriage: Also: meld, Hochzeit, Paar, bela, matrimonio; A King + Queen of the same suit held in hand, declared by the leader for a trick-point bonus. Trump marriage typically scores double the value of a plain marriage. Common in Schnapsen, Sixty-Six, Bezique, Pinochle.
ouvert: Also: open hand, exposed, offen, ouvert play; Variant of a contract played with the declarer's hand laid face-up on the table. Typically scores higher than the closed-hand version. Common in negative contracts (Bettler ouvert, Picolo ouvert).
round: Also: deal, Spiel, partie, bout; One full deal-play-score cycle. After a round, victory_points are updated.
slam: Also: valat, Valat, grand slam, piccolo slam, Tout; A special contract or bonus condition where the declarer wins every trick in the round.
still: Also: silent bonus, unannounced bonus, automatic bonus; A bonus achieved without prior announcement. Typically scores at half the announced value and carries no penalty if missed (since it was never declared).
stock: Also: Talon (Schnapsen sense), draw pile; In Schnapsen-family games: the undealt cards reserved for replacement draws after each trick during phase 1. The bottom card is turned face-up to set trump for the deal. Modeled under the canonical 'kitty' field in rules.json (see kitty entry for synonyms).
trick: Also: Stich, pli, levee; One card played by each player in turn. The winner of the trick takes all played cards.
trick_points: Also: Augen (in Schnapsen sense), Schnapsen points; In Schnapsen-family games: the running tally during a deal that combines card_points collected in tricks plus marriage bonuses. The race target is 66 trick_points. Distinct from card_points (which excludes meld bonuses) and from victory_points (= game points, awarded after the deal).
trump: Also: Trumpf, atout, trionfi; A suit or set of cards that beats all plain-suit cards regardless of the led suit.
ultimo: Also: last-trick bonus, Letzter-Stich-Bonus; A bonus for winning a specific late trick with a specific designated card. Examples: Pagat ultimo (last trick with Pagat), Uhu (second-to-last with II), König ultimo (last trick with the called king).
variant: Also: ruleset bundle, rule variant, house rules bundle, Variante; A named bundle of rule choices — `available_contracts`, `available_announcements`, `special_rules`, scoring overrides — within a game; expressed as one entry in `rules.json → variants[]` with a `rule_delta` body. The Elsteiner Games house baseline is `elsteiner-games-basic`. Note: `variants[]` and `contracts[]` are separate top-level keys in `rules.json` with distinct meanings — `contracts[]` enumerates contracts per game (rufer, solodreier, bettler, …); `variants[]` enumerates rule-delta bundles. A 'curated collection of contracts' is what `variants[].rule_delta.available_contracts` already expresses; don't conflate.
victory_points: Also: game points, Spielpunkte, prestige, match points; Points awarded (or deducted) for winning or losing a contract. Accumulated across rounds to determine the game winner.