Kontraspiel, also called Contra, is a German 5-card plain-trick game for four individual players using 24 cards.

The Unters of Acorns and Leaves (the equivalent of the two black Jacks) are permanent highest trumps, the Wenzels.

Kontraspiel is similar to the Scandinavian game Polskpas and is recorded as early as 1811.

[1] The earliest mention of Contra appears in a list of games in a 1755 poem.

[4] The earliest rules appeared in the same 1773 source under a separate entry, but the first comprehensive account is given in Hammer's 1811 edition of Die deutschen Kartenspiele.

The remaining 4 cards are not used in the game, except for the first of them, which is turned face-up to determine the preferred trump suit.

Starting with eldest hand, each player gets the chance to become soloist with the preferred suit as trumps.

If the turn-up card is an Ace and the dealer has not yet looked at his or her hand, then he or she can choose whether to follow the procedure just described for Wenzels.

At any time before the second trick has been started, any player other than the soloist may announce contra.

The player is only treated differently from a normal soloist for the purposes of the side-payments.