One of the most popular card games in the Netherlands, traditionally played in cafés: name trumps, where the Jack and Nine rule, collect roem for runs in your tricks, and take more than half the points, or your opponents take the lot.
Klaverjas (or Klaverjassen) is played by four players in two partnerships, partners sitting opposite: here you and North play against West and East. It uses 32 cards, the Seven up to the Ace in each suit, eight cards each, dealt three, two and three at a time. Play is clockwise.
Starting left of the dealer, each player may name a trump suit or pass. If all four pass, the player left of the dealer must choose. Whoever chose, the player left of the dealer leads to the first trick.
In trumps the cards rank Jack, Nine, Ace, Ten, King, Queen, Eight, Seven, worth 20, 14, 11, 10, 4, 3, 0 and 0. In the other suits they rank Ace, Ten, King, Queen, Jack, Nine, Eight, Seven, worth 11, 10, 4, 3, 2, 0, 0 and 0. That makes 152 card points, plus 10 for the last trick.
The rules above are the Amsterdam rules, pagat.com's main description. The Rules button switches to the Rotterdam rules, which change only the trumping. If you can't follow suit you must always trump if you can, even when your partner is winning, and every trump must beat the trumps already in the trick if it can. Switching starts a new game, and your choice is remembered on this device.
Klaverjas belongs to the Jass family of games, in which the Jack of trumps (the jas) is the highest card. According to Wikipedia, the name dates from around 1890 and combines klaver, the suit of clubs (literally clover), with jas. Its origin has been claimed by the Dutch, Swiss, French and Hungarians, but the games historian David Parlett says the family began in the Netherlands and is now most developed in Switzerland, where Jass was first mentioned in 1796.
Today Klaverjas is one of the most popular card games in the Netherlands, traditionally played in cafés and social clubs. Its variants are named after the cities where they arose: Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Utrecht. The rules here follow pagat.com's main description, the Amsterdam rules, written in our own words.
Klaverjas is a free browser version of the classic Dutch partnership card game, played with a computer partner against two computer opponents, with a daily game and online leaderboards. There's nothing to download and no sign-up.