Games - Skat

	Games - Skat

Skat is (along with Doppelkopf) the most popular card game in Germany. It is also played in American regions with large German populations, such as Wisconsin and Texas.

It is a three- or four-player game of tricks using a 32-card deck.

The game of skat is not related to the simple American card game called scat, which is a draw-and-discard game.

The deck of 32 cards consists of the cards 7, 8, 9, 10, jack, queen, king and ace in the suits diamonds, hearts, spades and clubs. There are no jokers. Some players in Eastern and Southern Germany and Austria prefer "German" decks with the suits of bells, hearts, leaves and acorns. At tournaments, a compromise deck is used nowadays that has the standard suits but with green spades and yellow diamonds. The choice of deck does not otherwise affect the game's rules.

Suitable packs can be bought pre-fabricated in Germany.

Although the game at first sounds quite simple it has great depth. To be a good player it is necessary to practice for several years. Good players can recognize most of the unknown cards of the other players within a few tricks, thus being in advantage.

Organization of players

League games are organized worldwide by the and within Germany by the and online by the .

Very often it's possible to join spontaneous rounds in pubs in Germany, although some players may be unwilling to play with beginners.

History

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.

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.

Game Rules

Because of the many variations in the rules of Skat, the rules below are necessarily general. A player should contact some nearby Skat players to have the game properly explained.

General principles

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. A soloist who manages to do this is awarded game points, a soloist 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.

Dealing

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 10 cards. The remaining 2 cards stay separate as the skat. Rules insist that dealing follows the pattern 3, Skat, 4, 3 (the numbers referring to the number of cards each player gets). In four player rounds, the dealer does not deal any cards to himself and skips the rest of the round!

Bidding

The bidding system (German: Reizen) defines which of the 3 active players plays alone against the other 2.

If several players are interested in playing the game, then the calculated height of bidding defines which player succeeds. Bidding always starts with the lowest possible game (18). It then follows a question and answer pattern.

The height that a player is allowed to bid -- nobody is required to bid anything -- is a multiplication of

the suit the player wants to be trumps -- clubs=12, spades=11, hearts=10, diamonds=9, grand(only jacks are trumps)=24 (official rules now state 24 as the base value, however for some time the official value was 20, some players still play with a value of 20)
a count of either trumps owned or trumps not owned plus one.

The trumps are always counted in unbroken succession from top down (jack of clubs, jack of spades, jack of hearts, jack of diamonds, trump ace, trump 10, trump king, trump queen, trump 9, trump 8, trump 7). If a player has the jack of clubs, he counts the unbroken series of trumps "With" which he plays; the first one that is missing stops the count. If he doesn't have the jack of clubs, he counts the unbroken series of trumps "Without" which he plays; the first one that is present stops the count. Cards in the "Skat" count as well, so the player who plays "without" 2 or more has to take into account that there might be a surprise for him in there which will reduce his count.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Skat ]