| Alternative names | Klappern, Klapperjazz, Klapperjass, Klapper Jas |
|---|---|
| Type | Point-trick |
| Players | 3 or 4 |
| Skills | Tactics & Strategy |
| Cards | 32 |
| Deck | French-suited |
| Rank (high→low) | Trumps: J 9 A 10 K Q 8 7 Side suits: A 10 K Q J 9 8 7 |
| Play | Clockwise |
| Chance | Medium |
| Related games | |
| Jass • Klaverjas • Klabberjass | |
Klammern is an ace–ten card game and variant of Jass, which is particularly widespread in the Alemannic region. It is played mainly in Switzerland, Liechtenstein, the Austrian state of Vorarlberg and in parts of southern Germany and Alsace. But the game is also finding more and more fans in the north-west of Germany, mainly in North Rhine-Westphalia. In Hamburg the game goes under the name Klapperjazz or Klapperjass and was initially played mainly by stevedores for "nen Heiermann", a 5 Mark piece. A die was used to keep score. In other parts of North Germany it is called Klappern or Klapper-Jas and was popular in the 1950s and 60s in pubs and bars and also among lorry drivers as they waited, for example, for customs clearance at Hamburg's free port.[1]
Klapperjass may be over a century old as the word is recorded in an Alsatian dictionary in 1899 as a card game and as a children's word for a beating or spanking, from which verklapperjassen, "to beat at cards" or "to beat by cheating" , is derived. No rules are given.[2]