The Penguin Book of Card Games: Everything You Need to Know to Play Over 250 Games (67 page)

International Skat-Players Association. Having fol owed dif erent

rules for many years, these two bodies agreed on a compromise

between the two which became ef ective on 1 January 1999.

Although both organizations like to be strict about their rules, they

are not always fol owed in domestic play, anda select listof

common variations fol ows the main description.

Preliminaries Three players are active, but four usual y play, with

each in turn dealing but not playing. A game is any number of deals

exactly divisible by the number of players. (In tournament play a

session is 48 deals, or 36 at a three-player table.) Choose first dealer

by any agreed means. Play to the left.

Cards Thirty-two, either French-suited (

AKQJT987) or

German (

AKOU10987).

Rank and value The rank of cards for trick-taking purposes, and

their point-value when captured in tricks, is as fol ows.

in trumps

J J J J A T K Q 9 8 7

card-points 2 2 2 2 11 10 4 3 0 0 0

non-trumps A T K Q 9 8 7

The total number of card-points in play is 120.

Note that, in trump bids, the four Jacks belong to the trump suit,

regardless of their individual suitmarks, and rank as the four highest

in the order shown. Consequently, while an Ace is the highest card

of a non-trump suit, it is only the fifth highest in trumps.

Deal Deal ten each in batches of 3-(2)-4-3. The (2) denotes 2 cards

dealt face down to the table immediately after the first three

batches of three. These constitute the skat.

Object There is an auction to establish a soloist. The soloist

normal y aims to capture at least 61 card-points in tricks, but may

instead bid to capture at least 90 (schneider), or to win every trick

instead bid to capture at least 90 (schneider), or to win every trick

(schwarz), or to lose every trick (nul ).

There are three types of contract:

1. A suit is declared trump. The entire trump suit then contains

eleven cards, headed by the four Jacks, and fol owed by

ATKQ987.

2. Grand. Only Jacks are trumps. They form a fifth suit of four

cards ranking from high to low

. The other four suits

rank ATKQ987 each.

3. Nul . The aim is to lose every trick. There is no trump, and

cards rank AKQJT987 in every suit.

Any of these contracts may be undertaken in either of two ways:

1. With the skat. Before announcing his contract, the soloist adds

the skat to his hand and makes any two discards face down.

2. From the hand. The skat remains untouched until after the last

trick.

Either way, the skat belongs to the soloist, and any card-points it

contains count for him at the end of play as if he had won them in

tricks (except at nul , where they are irrelevant).

Game values Players bid by announcing not the name of the

contract they wish to play, but the minimum score they expect to

make for it if successful. The score is not the same as the number of

card-points: it is the value of the contract they wish to undertake;

and this must be calculated in advance from a number of relevant

factors as fol ows.

1. Trump games are valued by taking the base value of the suit

selectedas trump (if any) and multiplying this by a numberof

additional factors cal ed multipliers. The base values are:

diamonds 9, hearts 10, spades 11, clubs 12, grand 24