| Skat (card game) | |
|---|---|
| Type | Trick-taking |
| Players | 3 |
| Deck | 32 |
| Cards | Anglo-American-French |
| Play | Clockwise |
| Card rank (highest to lowest) |
(J) A 10 K Q 9 8 7 A K Q J 10 9 8 7(only for Null-Games) |
| Related games | Sheepshead, Schafkopf, Doppelkopf |
| also played with German cards | |
Skat is (along with Doppelkopf) the most popular card game in Germany and Silesia. It is also played in areas of America with large German populations, such as Wisconsin and Texas.
It is a three- or four-player trick-taking game using a 32-card deck.
The deck of 32 cards consists of the cards 7, 8, 9, 10, jack, queen, king and ace in all suits, without jokers. Some players in Eastern and Southern Germany and Austria prefer German decks with the suits of bells, hearts, leaves and acorns. Until recently in Saxony and Thuringia, for example, German-suited decks were used almost exclusively. By contrast, regions of the former West Germany had adopted a French-suited deck (a subset of the Anglo-American deck).
Since the Reunification of Germany after the destruction of the Berlin Wall, a compromise turnierbild deck is used in tournaments that uses French suit shaped and face designs but with corresponding German suit colors, notably green Spades and yellow Diamonds[1]. The choice of deck does not otherwise affect the game's rules.
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League games are organized worldwide by the International Skat Players Association and within Germany by the Deutscher Skatverband e.V. and online by the Deutscher online Skatverband e.V..
Skat was developed around 1810 in Altenburg in what is now the Federal State of Thuringia, Germany and was based on the three-player game of Tarock (also known as Tarot) and the four-player game of Sheepshead. The main innovation was the Bidding process described below.[1]
The first official rules were published in 1886, also in Altenburg. Nevertheless, the rules continued to differ by region. Since 1998 both the ISPA and the DSkV use the same rules.
Skat features prominently in Guenter Grass's novel The Tin Drum and leads a trail connecting the plot. It is also played by many soldiers in Remarque's novel All Quiet on the Western Front.
Because of the many variations in the rules of Skat, the rules below are necessarily general, although rules not found in official German tournament play are marked as such. A player should contact some nearby Skat players to have the game properly explained.
In the long run, every one of the three or four players plays for himself, but in every single game one player, selected by the bidding process, plays against two others. When there are four players, each player skips one round out of four. The two opponents are not allowed to communicate in any way except by their choice of which cards to play.
The main goal in normal games is to score more than half of the card points, i.e. 61 or more out of 120. A declarer who manages to do this is awarded game points, a declarer who fails at this loses game points. At the end of the evening or of the particular round, the player with the most game points wins the round.
The game begins with the dealing of all cards to the three players. Dealing is rotated clockwise around the table, so that the player to the left of the last dealer then becomes the dealer of the next game. The cards are shuffled and dealt face down so that every player has ten cards. The remaining two cards stay separate as the skat. Rules insist that dealing follows the pattern three, skat, four, three (the numbers referring to the number of cards each player gets), but many hobby players deal five times two. In four-player rounds, the dealer does not deal any cards to himself and skips the rest of the round. He may peek into the hand of only one player (usually the one to his right) or into the skat, but not both.
The bidding system (German: reizen) decides which player will be playing alone against the other two. Thus, out of the four players, two play against one other. Bidding occurs prior to the play of every game. Each player must calculate to themselves the level (in game points) he is willing to bid up to, in order to make the correct decision.
Calculating the game point level sounds confusing at first, but is really quite simple. The basic game point level is just the multiplication of the value for the suit which is to be trump with a value for the flush run found in the hand.
The values for the trump suits are
The flush run is calculated as either the number of trumps owned, counting from the top, or the number of trumps missing. The ordering is given in the list below.
A player with the jack of clubs counts down the run series of trumps, stopping at the first one missing. If the jack of clubs is missing, the run of missing trumps is counted. The cards in the skat count as well, even in hand games (see below) where the declarer does not use the skat; this may unexpectedly reduce or increase the trump count and thus makes Hand games without two or more somewhat risky to play.
The run value can be increased by one point for any or all of the following special cases:
The following special cases are only allowed in case of "Hand", according to the official rules:
The game point level is calculated by multiplying the suit value by the sum of the run value and the special points.
If you think that you can get by with taking no tricks at all, you can declare Null, at 23 points, or Null Ouvert (playing with open cards) for 46 points.
Bidding is best demonstrated with a few examples. The first ones are for simply winning the game.
Now for the special cases - if you think you can do more than just win, you can add in points for the special cases.
Therefore the theoretically highest game point level would be 18, that is with or without eleven trumps in the hand plus the skat, plus the maximum of 7 special points for Game, Hand, Schneider, Pre-Announced-Schneider, Schwarz, Pre-Announced Schwarz, Ouvert. The lowest game point level is 1, either with the Jack of Clubs or without the Jack of Clubs and with the Jack of Spades.
The following roles are assigned for beginning bidding: to the left of the dealer is the person who listens to the bidding, on their left sits the bidder. In German this is counted as geben - hören - sagen, deal - listen - speak. At a three-player table the dealer is also the second bidder, at a four-player table the dealer only deals cards to the other players and sits out that game. The roles will shift clockwise after every game.
The bidder offers a game point level or passes, and the listener either accepts the level or passes. If the bidder passed, it is now the turn of the winner of this bidding round to listen to the second bidder. The bidding must begin at a game point level higher that the level one player just passed on. Bidding will usually begin at 18 - the lowest point level. Players can pass at any time, they do not have to climb to the level given by their hand if they feel it to be too weak. Experienced players can usually deduce some information about the other players' hands from their maximum bids.
Bidding begins with 18 (with or without 1 Jack is 2 times 9 for Diamonds) and continues with all possible combinations: 20, 22, 23, 24, 27, 30, 33, 35, 36, 40, 44, 45, 46, 48 etc. The highest possible value is 264 for a grand ouvert with four. (See below for explanation of "ouvert"). Included in this row is the special game Null (23) and its variants Null Hand (35), Null Ouvert (46) and Null Ouvert Hand (59).
The player who has won the bidding (known as the "declarer" or "soloist") is now free to take up the two remaining cards (the skat) and to discard two cards ("drücken"); the latter may or may not have been contained in the original skat. The declarer may choose not to take the skat at all, which turns the game into a Hand game and increases its value. After that, the trump suit is declared. Trumps can be
Should all players pass in the bidding, a variant called Ramsch (literally "trash"), worth 15 points, may optionally be played. There exist many local scoring variants for Ramsch, for example each of the following rounds will count double, the players will agree to these rules before beginning. Many hobby players do this, but it is not part of the official rules. According to the official rules, in this case the cards are handed in again without being shown, and the next dealer deals anew.
The declarer can decide to take up the skat and then to discard any two cards; or he can decide not to look at it (called hand game). In either case, any points in those two cards count towards him.
Following this, the declarer then announces which suit will be trumps.
The forehand (that is, the player to the left of the dealer) leads, i.e. he plays the first card, to the first trick; the other two follow in clockwise direction. Every player plays one card to the trick, which is in the middle of the table. The winner of a trick stacks its cards face-down in front of him, and leads to the next trick, which is again played clockwise.
The players must play a card with the same suit of the first card of the trick, if possible. If a player cannot follow suit, he may play any card (including a trump card). Trumps, including all four jacks, count as a single suit in their own right; if trumps are led, every player must also play trumps if he has any, and it is not possible to follow suit to a non-trump card with a jack or vice-versa.
If there is at least one trump card in the trick, the highest trump in it wins the trick. If there is no trump in it, the highest card of the suit led wins the trick.
The non-trump suit cards rank in order (highest first): ace, 10, king, queen, 9, 8, 7. Note that the 10 beats the king and queen. The trumps rank the same way, but with the four jacks in the order (highest first): clubs, spades, hearts, diamonds beating them all. The jack of clubs always wins the trick that it is in.
Completed tricks are kept face down in front of the players that won them, until all the cards have been played. Examining completed tricks is not allowed. The tricks of the two players who are playing together are put together, either during or after play.
In many house rules, there are special calls one can make. A defender can call "Kontra" upon playing their first card, in which the point values are doubled. If Kontra is called, the declarer can call "Re(kontra)", a redouble. If a defender feels that they cannot win no matter what, they can call "Schenken" on any trick. That ends the round and gives the declarer the rest of the points for the round.
To win, the declarer must achieve 61 or more card points out of the total 120. In order to avoid confusion with game points, card points are called Augen (eyes) in Germany. There is no tie; a 60-60 game is a loss for the declarer.
Since Skat is a zero-sum game, whatever card points he failed to acquire were acquired by the defenders, so only one stack of cards need be counted. The cards have the following card point values:
Note in particular that the highest-ranking cards for taking tricks (the jacks) are not the highest scoring cards. Note also that the aces and tens combined make up almost three quarters of the total points; taking as many as possible of them is thus imperative for winning. On the other hand, winning 7s, 8s, and 9s doesn't help (or hurt) at all, unless schwarz (see below) is to be achieved.
If a player bid more than he made (e.g., because he found a jack of clubs in the skat and thus went from "without three" to "with one"), he loses. This is called überreizen (overbidding). There are several methods of bidding and scoring higher, which allows a player to rescue himself in this case, or which simply increases the number of game points he gets:
If (and only if) playing hand: schneider, schwarz or ouvert can be announced after bidding, and their being announced adds another one to the trump count. However, a player who announces, and then doesn't follow up on the announcement, loses. Schneider is never counted more than once; so if you announce sSchneider and then at the end you get less than 30 points yourself, only the original schneider plus announcement that you failed to reach is counted against you, your own schneider is not.
Some hobbyist groups allow all possible combinations of hand, schneider, schwarz and ouvert announcements; in the standard rules this is not possible, schneider can be announced only if hand is also announced, schwarz obviously implies schneider, and ouvert can only be announced if schwarz is also to be achieved. But even in the standard rules unannounced schneider and schwarz apply in all eligible games, hand or not.
Some hobbyist groups allow a player of the opponent party to announce Contra before he plays his a card to the first trick if he thinks the declarer won't win his game, which doubles the game points to be won or lost by the declarer. The declarer may then reply re, which doubles again, if he thinks he can win anyway. None of this is allowed in the standard rules.
There are some special games.
Ramsch is not part of official skat rules, but is widely practiced in hobbyist rounds, and is the unofficial rule most often suggested for inclusion into official rules. It is played when all three players pass during the bidding process. There is no declarer in ramsch; every player plays for himself. Tricks are played as if the game were Grand (only jacks are trumps). Hobby players often add the following rule: 10s are lower in trick taking power than Queens and Kings, BUT still count as ten points. Sometimes, they only count one point. There are a couple of variants to the rules concerning 10s, so this should be cleared before starting the game. After all ten tricks are played, the player with the highest number of card points (or alternatively, every player) has their card points amount deducted from their score as negative game points. Other rounds give a fixed value of 15 negative points to the loser. In all variants of Ramsch, the object of this anti-game is to receive as few card points as possible. The idea is to punish players who should have bid on their not-too-bad hands instead of passing.
The score (game points, not the same as card points) for each game (except Ramsch) is always assigned to the declarer.
If the outcome of the game matched or exceeded the initial bid, and the declarer therefore won the game, then the declarer scores as many game points as a bid value on the outcome could have reached maximally — no matter what his actual maximum bid was.
Otherwise, if the declarer failed to reach the goal set by the initial bid and therefore lost, then the declarer is penalized by twice as many negative game points. Until 1998, lost hand games did not count double, but this rule was dropped in that year. (The reason was that in tournament play nearly all games played were hand games at this point; they increased the trump count by one and also did not penalise as much as a normal game would when lost).
In league games, a fixed number of points is added for each game that is won by the declarer , to lower the chance factor and to stress the skill factor of the game. In that situation, it becomes far more important for each player to bid his hand as far as possible.
Skat in the United States and Canada shares most of its rules with its European counterpart with the addition of a few different games and an alternate system of scoring.
Upon determining the game, declarer may also state that he or she intends to schneider or schwarz for extra game points (or penalties – see below).
Card points are the same as in German Skat: A=11, 10=10, K=4, Q=3. J=2 and all other cards have no value. The game points, however, are a bit different. Base value for the different games are as follows:
As in German Skat, game points in North American Skat are tallied by multiplying base game value by:
Note that if schneider or schwarz are declared but not made, then the contract is not met and declarer loses the amount that he or she would have won if successful. The above multipliers do not figure into games played null or ramsch.
Several computer programs for Skat exist.