We present and analyze novel hierarchical a posteriori error estimates
for self-adjoint elliptic obstacle problems.
Our approach differs from straightforward, but non-reliable estimators~\cite{RHWHoppe_RKornhuber_1994a}
by an additional extra term accounting for the deviation
of the discrete free boundary in the localization step.
We prove efficiency and reliability
on a saturation assumption and a regularity condition on the underlying grid.
Heuristic arguments suggest
that the extra term is of higher order and preserves full locality.
Numerical computations confirm our theoretical findings.
We present a hierarchical a~posteriori error analysis for the
minimum value of the energy functional in symmetric obstacle
problems. The main result is that the energy of the exact solution
is, up to data oscillation, equivalent to an appropriate
hierarchical estimator. The proof of the main result does not
invoke any saturation assumption. Moreover, we prove an a
posteriori error estimate indicating that the estimator from
\cite{RHWHoppe_RKornhuber_1994a} is asymptotically reliable and we
give sufficient conditions for the validity of a saturation
assumption. Finally, we corroborate and complement our theoretical
results with numerical experiments.