Like its parent, Russian Schnapsen features "marriages" (pairs of a King and Ober/Queen of the same suit) which are worth extra points.
There are the usual four suits: Hearts (Herz or Rot), Bells (Schelle), Leaves (Grün, Laub or Blatt) and Acorns (Eichel).
After cutting, the top part is placed on the table and bottom card is checked by the dealer.
Dealing cards is very delicate and typically dealer can be charged with -120 scores fine if not agreed beforehand otherwise.
When playing with four player dealer only serves the deck and holds the stock until bidding is over.
Dealer in this case is allowed to see the stock before bidding is over but is strictly disallowed to share whatsoever he knows about its contents.
Players after observing their hand cards are taking part in bidding one-by-one strictly clock-wise in order.
Notice: The final declaration of points the bidding-winner player is obliged to score during game round can be increased after the stock is observed and cards are given away.
Order of hierarchy (top to bottom): ace, ten, king, Ober/queen, Unter/jack, nine.
Marriage is a feature of the game and consists of king and Ober/queen of the same suit in one player's hand.
Different marriages give different numbers of points (king and Ober/queen): After game round ends – players count their scores.
In case player who did not win bidding has got 0 tricks, he gets special remark for that round – "bolt".
In case player who did not win bidding gets zero tricks by the end of the game round, in addition to zero points he gets special mark, called bolt or strike-through.
The player who won bidding cannot be assigned a bolt for the round even if he had no tricks, hence he gets a negative number of declared scores.
In case player who is on the barrel has won bidding, declared only 120 points, then regardless of how much scores he manages to achieve - they are not counted.
In this tour all points for all players are doubled, even negative, even bolts, even charges with fines.
The game can be played with four players by using a sit out dealer, who scores cards in the stock.