How to play all-pass

An all-pass (raspasy) starts when all three players have passed: no trumps, no contract, everyone plays for themselves, and whoever takes the fewest tricks comes out best.

The play is easiest to explain with the classification from D. Lesnoy's textbook, first put into a system by N. Yu. Rozaliev: suits are sorted by two traits, the order of play follows two rules, and special cases are covered by 15 techniques. This article gives a short summary of that method.

How suits are classified

There are two traits, good / bad and problem / problem-free, and both change as the play goes on: a suit that is bad on the first lead may well be good by the fifth.

Does the suit hold the lowest card still left in play? If it does, the suit is "good"; if not, it is "bad". With 8 K A in spades, the suit is bad while the seven is with an opponent; once the seven has gone, your eight is the lowest card in play, and the same suit is now good.

Does the number of tricks depend on who leads? If the suit takes more on your own lead than on an opponent's, it is a "problem" suit; if the same, it is "problem-free".

Two rules for the order of play

Rule 1. Play the bad problem-free suits first. This is the well-known "take your tricks, they'll be given to you anyway": a suit that will take its tricks whoever leads is better cashed by you while you still have exit cards in hand. Holding A K, 7 9 J and Q J, cash both A K and Q J.

Rule 2. When no bad problem-free suits are left, play the good problem-free ones. Holding A 7 and 8 9 Q, lead the ace: you take your trick and hand over the lead with the seven.

In short: problem-free suits first, then good ones. First take what is yours, then give the lead away. And when no problem-free suits are left, ask yourself whether it is your lead at all: by rule 2 you have already given it away, and you only have to lead a problem suit if the lead comes back to you.

The first two leads and discards

The play splits into two parts: the first two leads, whose suit is set by the talon, and the remaining eight. In the first part the suit is chosen for you, and you only choose the card, which has its own rules. The exception is Rostov, where the talon is put aside as soon as all-pass is declared and is not shown until the end of the deal.

In general: if the lead is a ten or higher, play a card below ten. The exception is second and third hand holding a suit like K 7 or A 7 with one entry and one exit card.

After that it all depends on your position. The table covers a low card (foska), that is a seven, eight or nine, led from the talon.

If you have none of the suit led, that is you are void (renons), discard a singleton nine or higher. With no singleton, discard from a "doubleton", a pair of cards in one suit that is worth about one trick whatever the layout. There are 23 doubletons in all, listed in order of discard priority: discard from the one further left in the list.

Counting hands

None of the rules above works blind: to know whether your suit is problem-free, you need a picture of how the opponents' cards lie. The count rests on five things: each hand had 10 cards, each suit has 8 cards, the deck has 4 suits, plus what has already hit the table and how everyone passed.

That last one is especially valuable in all-pass: all three players have already passed, and that alone says a lot about their cards. Say three are playing, it is the first all-pass, and first hand cashes A K of spades in the talon suit and goes on with A K of hearts. Where is the ace of diamonds? Certainly not with first hand: with those cards the player would not have passed. They hold no mariage either. And if you are third hand with K 9 7 of clubs, the ace of clubs is almost certainly "behind the hand", and with the queen or the jack: someone can only pass holding A K of spades and A K of hearts with a club holding like 8 10 or 8 10 J.

Six groups of techniques

There are fifteen techniques of play, sorted into six groups of 3, 4, 2, 3, 1 and 2. In a single deal you will need two or three of them, rarely four or five, but you need to recognize them all.

1. Singleton: 3 techniques

1. Don't lead a singleton eight. It will almost never take a trick, since only the seven ranks below it, so sitting in your hand it poses no threat: it is a ready safe card both for when someone else opens the suit and for discards. A lead in all-pass costs you: you open a fresh suit, the opponents calmly drop their small cards into it, and one of them collects a cheap trick. An eight is not worth that; wait until the suit is opened without you.
2. Cash a singleton higher than a nine. The opposite case: it will take a trick anyway, the only question is when, and better at a moment you choose rather than your opponents.
3. Fake a singleton. Once you have counted the opponents' hands, it sometimes pays not to cash the second card of a bad problem-free suit. Say you are second hand with K J, 7 Q, 8 9, 8 9 Q A. The jack of spades and the nine of diamonds went to the dealer's queens. Should you cash the king of spades? If you don't, and get out with two club leads instead, the opponents may decide you have no king. Three spades are left, the 7, J and A, and whatever the split (7 A or J A), an opponent will not lead a spade until the end of the play, because they don't know which card you hold. And in the middle of the play you can discard that king.

2. Taking the lead: 4 techniques

1. Take the lead and give it up. The same rules 1 and 2, applied after you have won the lead.
2. Fake an entry. For layouts with a high singleton and reliable exit cards, like 7 Q, K, 7 9 J A, 8 Q. This looks like three tricks. But you don't have to cash the king of clubs on your lead: the opponents will decide your clubs are "clean" and lead them themselves. Having taken the club with the king, lead the queen of spades: an opponent who fears being thrown in with clubs may well take it in order to cash the clubs. That is when you discard the queen of hearts: two tricks instead of three.
3. Early entry. Mostly for three-player games. You take one of the first tricks, even an extra one, cash one or two of your own, and wait calmly while the opponents fight it out between themselves. Say you hold Q 8, A 7, 8, 7 9 10 J K: take the queen of spades, then the ace of clubs, then the eight of spades, and no one bothers you until the end of the deal.
4. Double entry. For rare layouts with a long suit and no low cards, like K 7, A 8 7, K Q J 10 9. Instead of five tricks you can take four or three: win with both good suits and get out in the bad one. The upside is full control of the situation; the downside is a possible extra trick.

3. Prophylaxis: 2 techniques

1. Prophylaxis. Take a trick in a problem suit to turn it into a problem-free one. Holding K Q 7 and knowing from the count that the ace is third on your right, cash the queen: the suit has no problems left.
2. Spoil an opponent's prophylaxis. You hold A 7, 9, 8 9 K, 7 9 J A. The opponent on your left cashed the king of hearts and continues with the queen of spades, and the player on your right takes it with the king of spades. Why are they playing like that? Quite possibly the player on the right is setting up prophylaxis. Calmly overtake with the ace and lead the king and eight of diamonds: let them think you have no diamonds left.

4. Leave alone: 3 techniques

Three kinds of doubletons are never touched; let the opponents play them:

1. 8 10
2. 8 10 with a face card
3. 9 J and 9 Q

5. Switching: 1 technique

1. Switching. Holding K 8 or A K 8, cash the high card and give up the lead in another suit. The opponents are left guessing what you hold in the first suit, and their count of the hands may go wrong.

6. Testing a problem suit: 2 techniques

Sometimes the layout cannot be worked out, and you hold a problem suit. Then you test it: yes, you may take an extra trick, but you may also get rid of three extra ones. This takes a calculation for the specific layout.

1. Lead the highest card of the problem suit.
2. Lead into a void.

A few statistics

34.87% of deals played end in all-pass, and at least one round of all-pass happens in 91.9% of games: about every third deal and almost every game. The numbers below come from 400,000 three-player all-pass deals played by real people in SmartPref Pro online games; single-player games against bots are not included.

Let us sort the deals: how many tricks the player who got off lightest took, how many the middle player took, and how many the player who got hit hardest took. Each column covers all 400,000 deals and adds up to 100%. The last row shows the average number of tricks for each player.

The average deal looks like 5-3-2, which is also the most common actual result.

There is no point aiming for zero: with a hand like that you would have declared misère instead of passing. The real goal is more modest: stay within four tricks. The worst player at the table takes five or more in 83.38% of all-pass deals, so four or fewer almost always means the worst player is not you.

An even split almost never happens. The most common outcome, 5-3-2, comes up in 16.10% of all-pass deals, and the top three splits together (5-3-2, 5-4-1 and 6-3-1) make up 41.04%. The even 4-3-3 is only fifth.

When you don't want an all-pass

Techniques are all very well, but the decision is made earlier, in the trade. With a hand like Q J, Q, 7 8 J Q K, 9 A you will take so many tricks in all-pass that it is cheaper to declare a contract and calmly lose it, or go three down if you get the chance.

The count is almost the same as for a contract, only the other way round: for each suit, estimate how many tricks it will take if you try not to take any, look separately at the cards that will take a trick whatever the layout, and use the larger of the two. Add up the four suits and you have the expected number of tricks in all-pass. The hint during the trade shows the same number, with these thresholds:

There is a fourth case too, when you count not the hand but the price of the round: if a declared contract loses fewer whists than the all-pass would, it pays to bid even with mediocre cards. That is down to the all-pass progression: by the third or fourth round the multiplier grows so large that a six you are sure to lose costs less than four tricks in all-pass.

Frequently asked questions