Flutterby™! : Doppelkopf

Charlene's nephew recently got married to a German woman, and he mentioned that Doppelkopf is a very popular card game over there, but one that he's still trying to get the hang of. Charlene and I have sat down and tried to analyze two open-hand rounds, and I think we're starting to get a handle on it, but...

You'd think it'd be an easy matter of taking trumps. My first thought was "oh, this must be some German thing where lots of beer is what makes it hard". However, the three levels of point indirection, taking the trump, whether that trump will contribute to your game, and then how to turn that contribution into how many points you take for the game, make optimizing a given play non-obvious. Jeanne and Janine are also learning this, a few more games and we'll sit down and try to play it closed-hand with them.