Schlafmütze: the quartet race

Schlafmütze (“sleepyhead”) is a German children's card game about attention more than luck. Everyone tries to collect four cards of one rank — a quartet. The first one to manage it quietly takes a token from the middle, everybody else grabs one too, and whoever is left without a token is the Schlafmütze.

How the game is set up

Playcards deals one quartet per player: with four players the deck holds four Aces, four Kings, four Queens and four Jacks, and everybody gets four cards. In the middle lie the tokens — always one fewer than there are players.

1. Open the Schlafmütze tab.
2. Choose Against the computer and set the Number of players (three to eight).
3. Under House rules → Computer reactions pick how quickly the computer players grab: Relaxed (several seconds) takes the time pressure out, Fast is a real race.
4. Press Deal the cards.

Passing cards

Everybody passes at the same time. Choose the card you want to get rid of — Choose a card to pass to the left. — and press it. Your card lies face down until all players have chosen; then every card moves one seat to the left. You receive a card from the player on your right.

Keep the rank you hold most of and pass the others. If you hold two Kings and two Queens, decide for one rank and stick with it.

Grabbing a token

As soon as someone holds four of a kind, they lay the quartet down and take a token. The message Grab a token now! appears and the Grab a token button lights up — press it, or press Space. Whoever is too slow is the Schlafmütze.

If you collect the quartet, Playcards tells you: You have four of a kind — grab a token!

Careful: grabbing before anybody showed a quartet is a false grab. By default the false grabber becomes the Schlafmütze at once. Under House rules → Grabbing too early you can choose that a false grab is ignored instead.

Who wins

Normally the Schlafmütze leaves the table, the next round is played with one quartet and one token fewer, and the last player left wins. Under House rules you can switch to Letters of SCHLAFMÜTZE: every Schlafmütze gets a letter, and whoever has collected the agreed number of letters loses.

Several people on one device

With Pass the device (friends on this device) everyone passes in turn on the same screen. The privacy screen hides the cards between turns. For the grab, each player has a number key: 1 to 8 grab for seat 1 to 8, so several people can share one keyboard.

Next steps

• Learn a game where every card point counts: Skat: bidding, games and game values.