Mulatschag - the complete Bergxi rules

Mulatschag (also: Mulatschak, hungarian: mulatság, a feast or joyous event).

A card game for 2-4 players.
Played with 33 "Doppeldeutsche" playing cards, VII-X, U(nter), O(ber), K(önig), S(au), and the VI of Schelle, the "Weli". The colours are: Herz (hearts), Schelle (bell), Laub (leaf), Eichel (acorn).
Cards rank (highest first): S, Weli, K, O, U, X, IX, VIII, VII.

Dealing:
The dealer shuffles the cards and lets the person to his right lift the pile. The person right of the dealer looks at the bottom card (the one he just lifted). If it is the Weli, he is allowed to keep it. [1]
The dealer then deals each player 5 cards, clockwise, 3 in the first round, 2 in the second.

Bidding:
Starting with the person left of the dealer, each player does either of the following:
a.) bid (ie. say a number of tricks that player expects to do). A bid always has to be at least one more trick than the previous players announced.
b.) pass
c.) announce a "Mulatschag".
The dealer has the option to call the game for himself ("my game") if he is prepared to make as many tricks as the last bidding was (ie. he does not have to increase the number of tricks by one).
A "Mulatschag" can only be announced in the first round, and is played as described in the section "Mulatschag".
After the first round of bidding, if one player holds no "figure" cards (U, O, K, S), he can let the game "fold", which means, the dealer reshuffles the cards, lets the player to his right lift the pile (Weli rule applies), and deals a new hand to each player. The game after a "folded" game counts double (see "Counting Points").
The bidding process is repeated until all players pass.

The player who has the highest bid (the contract holder) then announces the colour he wants to play the game in (Trump colour).

Exchanging Cards:
Each player (starting with the player with the highest bid) is allowed to exchange cards - between one and five - by putting away the desired amount of cards and then being dealt an equal amount of new cards by the dealer.
If played with four players, the last player to exchange cards may instead decide to not play this game (giving him a penalty of 3 basic points), if not enough cards are left for him to exchange the desired amount.
There are three special cases of exchanging cards:
"Fünf auf die Sau" (five on top of the Sau): If the contract holder openly shows the Sau of Trumps and disposes the other 4 cards, he then receives 5 new cards (keeping the Sau). He then disposes one card of his choice from his hand.
"A gschaude" (one visible): If a player only wants to exchange one card, he may ask for a card being openly shown to him, then decides whether to take that card, or have another one (closed) dealt to him.
"A Bruckn" (a bridge): if a player decides to exchange all 5 cards, he is then dealt 5 closed cards, and one open card. If the open card is a Trump card, he's dealt another one, until the opened cards are of any other colour than Trump colour. He then disposes cards of his choice until only holding five cards in his hand again.

The game
The contract holder starts by playing a card from his hand. Clockwise, the other players have to play a card into the trick. The highest card then wins the trick. Mulatschag has three restrictions: forced colour, forced tricking, forced trumping.
First, the players have to serve the colour (ie. if Laub is played as the first card of the trick, any player who has a Laub card in his hand has to play it before any other colour). This applies to all colours, not only Trump. Second, if the player cannot serve the colour, he has to play a (Trump) card that allows him to win the trick at this point. Thirdly, if the player doesn't hold a card of the same colour as played, nor any card allowing him to win the trick at that point, and if there is already a Trump card played into the trick, he then has to play (if possible) any lower Trump card he still holds.

Assuming that Laub is Trump, and the first player plays the VII of Herz. The second player holds a Herz card (say, IX and K), and therefor has to play any of these. He decides to play the K. The third player has the U and O of Herz, and plays any of these. The fourth player doesn't have any Herz cards, but holds the U and K of Laub. He has to play any of these, and decides for the K. The fourth player doesn't have any Herz cards, so he has to play Laub. Since his only Laub is the O, he has to play it. The third player wins this trick and plays the next card.

For all purposes, the Weli is treated as a trump card (the second highest after the Sau).

All 5 tricks are played in the same way.


Mulatschag
If after dealing the cards, one player thinks he can do all 5 tricks, he calls out "Mulatschag!". No cards can be exchanged, and the game cannot fold, even if one player has a hand without face cards.

Counting Points
Everybody starts with 21 points. The goal is to reach 0 points.
A) Regular game
Each trick counts 1 basic point. For each trick a player makes, the according number of points (= basic points * multipliers) is deducted from his current points.
If the contract holder fails to fulfill his contract (ie. makes less tricks than initially announced), irrespective of how many tricks he actually won, he is penalized with +10 basic points.
B) Mulatschag
If the player announcing a Mulatschag is successful (ie. wins all 5 tricks), 10 basic points are deducted. Every other player receives a +10 penalty.
If the player announcing a Mulatschag fails, irrespective of how many tricks he won and who won the other tricks, he is penalized with +20 basic points, and each other player receives -5 basic points bonus.
C) Multipliers
A game's point value is 1 basic point per trick, multiplied by 2 for
a.) each time a game folds,
b.) games where Herz is Trump.
Eg. if a game folds 2 times, and then a game in Herz is announced, the value of each trick is eightfold (2(fold)*2(fold)*2(Herz)).

Special Restrictions
If a player has 5 points or less, he is not allowed to exchange cards. This only holds until he either won the game, or has more than 5 points again.
A game finishes if either of the players reach 0 points, or exceed 50 points.


[1] Even if the game "folds", the Weli may be kept if it was lifted by the person right of the dealer for the next round.

To wikrastinate

Means: to spend hours on some wiki (tvtropes, for example), opening hundreds of new tabs in the browser while reading through articles and clicking on every link that sounds interesting.

Why we all should love France

No, you won't be Rickroll'd into anything here, but "never gonna give [you] up" seems to be the motto of French workers, even when facing the worldwide economic crisis. Not only do they lock managers in their offices, now some of them also threaten to blow up a car supplies factory if they don't get redemption payments. Apart from the fact that violence (or the threat of using violence) is "the last refuge of the incompetent" - it gives me hope to read that there are still some people out there who have the guts and will to fight for a more just world, even against overwhelming opposition. When the revolution comes - it will start in France.

Wahlkarten

Die Grünen haben überdurchschnittlich viele Stimmen von Wahlkartenwählern erhalten - wie bei anderen Wahlen auch. FPÖ und BZÖ waren beide im Vergleich zur "normalen" Wahl teils weit unter ihrem Schnitt. Legitimer Schluß: Menschen, denen die Ausübung ihres demokratischen Grundrechts wirklich wichtig ist, wählen bevorzugt Parteien aus dem Zentrum und links davon. Oder, provokant: Wer ein Demokrat ist, lässt Mölzer, Stadler, Strache und Co. rechts liegen.

Geek, Nerd, etc.

Since it popped up in a discussion recently, I'd like to point out my personal view on the Geek vs. Nerd topic:

A Geek is a person who is fascinated by technical stuff - computers, mathematics, physics, chemistry, electronics, you-name-it. Still, a Geek is able to participate in hour-long conversations (even with the other sex) without including any of these favourite topics. You may want to see thinkgeek.com to get an impression.

A Nerd on the other hand is inept of any kind of social life, conversation, or contact with members of the other sex. While still maintaining the interest in above-mentioned topics, s/he often does not excel at them either. A collection of Nerd thoughts can be found at bash.org - you have been warned.