SKAT

Skat Rules

Skat is a German Ace-Ten trick taking game for three players. As the national card game of Germany, Skat - along with Doppelkopf - is one of the most played games in the nation as well as being immensly popular in the surrounding area. "Skat", generally translated to 'garbage', refers to the two card Skat pile that players exchange with. When implementing the game we mostly referred to the excellent rule overview at Pagat.com, but additionally the Skatordung - the international laws of Skat.

Skat is somewhat more complicated than many of our other games, having nonstandard bidding sequences, trump orderings, being concerned with point values rather than simply how many tricks are taken, and a rather involved scoring scheme. However, those added complications are what make Skat such an enthralling game with near endless layers of depth and strategy.

On German-Suited Cards

While perfectly possible to play with standard French Cards, Skat is often played with German Suited cards, or a German tournament deck. Which deck is used where is subject to region and preference, but the major differences are as such:

A typical Skat deck will feature the usual French suits - Diamonds, Hearts, Spades, Clubs. However, the jacks and queens feature the letters "B" for "Bube" (Boy), and "D" for "Dame" (Lady) - the German equivalent for Jacks and Queens.

A traditional German-suited deck is more commonly used in south and east Germany, and over a wide region in Central Europe. German Cards feature the suits Bells (Diamonds), Hearts (Hearts), Leaves (Spades), and Acorns (Clubs), and the court cards of Unter (Knave, equivalent to Jack), Ober (Overseer, equivalent to Queen), and the King.

Dealing and starting

Skat is played with a 32 card nonstandard deck, consisting of sevens, eights, nines, tens, queens, jacks, kings, and aces. The initial dealer is chosen at random, but moves clockwise after the first round.

Players are dealt 10 cards each round. Deal 3 cards to each player, starting with the player to the left of the dealer. Then, deal two cards to the side into a special pile called "the Skat". Finish off by dealing 4 cards to each player, and then 3 cards.

Once each player has been dealt 10 cards, the bidding begins.

Bidding

The right to name trump is determined through bidding. Bidding begins with the player to the dealer's left (the forehand). The player to the dealer's right (the middlehand) starts the bidding by naming a valid bid, which the forehand may either accept or pass. If accepted, the middlehand may raise the bid or pass. This exchange continues, with the middlehand raising and the forehand accepting, until one of them passes.

When either the forehand or middlehand passes, the dealer (the rearhand) enters the bidding. The rearhand takes over the bidding role from the middlehand, naming progressively higher bids against whichever player (forehand or middlehand) is still active. This continues until one of the two passes, leaving a single player as the winning bidder.

The player who wins the bid becomes the declarer, while the other two players become partners aiming to set the declarer

If neither middlehand nor rearhand wish to bid the forehand wins the contract by default at 18 - the lowest possible bid. Alternatively, if the Forehand does not wish to play at 18 they may pass as well. If they pass the round ends and the deck is redealt, with dealership moving on to the next player. A common house rule is that the declarer may not throw in the hand when given the default bid, but instead may decide to declare "Ramsch", a special contract that plays like Grand but has the goal of avoiding tricks. There are variations on how Ramsch works and what scores and penalties to attach to it, so we opted to not implement it and instead go by the officially sanctioned rules of Skat.

Bidding Sequence

Conventionally, the speaking player always raises the bid to the next legal bid in the specific sequence corresponding to all possible game contracts. It is not conventional to jump-raise a bid (f.i going directly from 18 to 22, skipping 20), simply because there is no advantage to overbidding. In keeping with convention, this game will only ever ask you to either pass or name the next bid in line.

Valid bids are multiples of 9, 10, 11, and 12; as well as the fixed Null bids of 23, 35, 46, and 59. The lowest bid is 18, and the highest bid is 264 (albeit it's unheard of for a bid to go even half that high, as it's unlikely that two players would both have hands justifying such competition)

Exchanging from the Skat

Before declaring what contract they wish to play the declarer may look at and exchange cards with the Skat. There is no limit to which cards you discard if you pick up the Skat, but you must discard two. The declarer may also refuse to look at the Skat, leaving it face down and playing with the ten cards they were originally dealt. Refusing to pick up the Skat is called playing "a hand game". Hand games are more challenging, but are worth more points to compensate.

Once the Skat has been exchanged (or not exchanged), the declarer names their contract.

Naming the contract

There are seven possible contracts.

• Trump. (Diamonds, Hearts, Spades, Clubs)The named suit becomes trump, and the declarer must take at least 61 card points
• Grand.Only the jacks are trump, and the declarer must take at least 61 card points
• Null.There are no trumps, and the declarer must avoid all tricks
• Open Null.There are no trumps, and the declarer must avoid all tricks with their hand face up on the table.

In addition to these contracts, if the declarer did not look at the Skat and intends to declare either Trump or Grand they may announce one of three additional outcomes: Schneider, Schwarz, or Open. A Schneider means taking at least 90 points. Schwarz aims to take all the tricks, and an Open contract aims to take all tricks with their hand exposed. So, a declarer naming "Hearts Schneider" is playing with Hearts as trump, and intends to take 90 points instead of the usual 61. Each of these announcements makes the game more difficult for the declarer, but does increase the value of the contract.

The aim of the declarer is to name a contract that is at least worth as much as the bid value, and in which they believe they can achieve the target number of points (61 or 90) or can take/avoid all tricks (Schwarz/Null). While players can name contracts worth less than the value of the bid, doing this would certainly lead to an automatic loss and a score penalty. Refer to the section "Scoring a Contract" to determine what each contract is worth.

The order of Trumps

Skat uses a nontraditional ranking of cards.

When playing a suit contract the four Jacks are always considered to belong to the trump suit, and always rank higher than all other trumps in a fixed order - Clubs, Spades, Hearts, Diamonds. The other cards are ranked Ace, Ten, King, Queen, Nine, Eight, Seven.

Example: Diamonds are trump. The trump suit is CJ SJ HJ DJ DA D10 DK DQ D9 D8 D7. The off-suits consist of just seven cards: CA C10 CK CQ C9 C8 C7

When playing Grand the four Jacks form a trump suit of their own, ranked CJ SJ HJ DJ, and do not belong to any other suit. The four remaining suits are ordered as before: CA C10 CK CQ C9 C8 C7

When playing Null there are no trumps, and cards are ordered according to face value: CA CK CQ CJ C10 C9 C8 C7. Note that Aces are high.

The Play

Once the contract is decided the game starts. The forehand always leads the first trick, regardless who is the declarer. If the declarer is playing an open contract they must place their hand face-up on the table in front of them before the first trick is played.

Players must follow suit if possible, or else play any card they wish. The highest card of the suit wins, unless a trump is played, in which case the highest trump played wins. Remember that in Suit contracts and Grand Jacks are members of the trump suit, not whatever suit they usually belong to. In the same manner, if someone leads a Jack in a Grand contract all other players must follow with Jacks of their own if possible, as Jacks are the sole members of their suit. Whoever takes the trick then leads the next one.

When playing Null or Null Ouvert the round ends the moment the declarer takes a trick, as the only objective of a Null contract is for the declarer to take no tricks.

Regardless of the contract being played, table talk is not allowed. Partners may not strategize or discuss the game with each other. However, partners should do their best to help each other set the declarer, for instance by throwing high-valued cards on each other's trick or lead cards they believe their partner is guaranteed to take.

Scoring a Game

In order to win a contract the declarer must fulfil two conditions:

1. The declarer must achieve the objective of the contract
2. The value of the played contract must match or exceed the declarer's bid (see the next section)

When playing a Trump or Grand contract the declarer counts the Point values of all the cards contained in the tricks they took, as well as any in the Skat, according to the following table:

The entire deck thus totals 120 points, and the objective of a normal contract is to take a majority of those card points.

• When playing Grand or Trump the target is 61 points
• If the declarer announced Schneider the target becomes 90 instead of 61.
• If the declarer announces Schwarz or Open the target becomes to take every trick on offer, regardless of point values.
• When playing Nullo the declarer must avoid every trick on offer.

Scoring a Contract

If the contract is won, calculate the value of the contract and add it to the declarer's total.
If the contract is lost, either because the declarer fails to achieve the stated objective or because they overbid (bidding beyond the calculated value of the contract) instead subtract double the contract value from their total score.

Example: The declarer of a minimum Grand contract - valued at 48 points - achieves their goal of earning 61 card points and adds 48 to their total. If they had instead failed the contract by earning 60 or fewer card points they lose 96 points, double what they stood to earn.

Example: The declarer wins the bid with 30, but after declaring and successfully winning a contract finds that their contract only amounted to 24 points instead of 30. They thus subtract 48 points from their total score, twice the actual value of the contract they had played.

Grand or Suit

Regardless if the contract was won or lost, calculate the value of a contract as follows: Take the base value of the contract from the table below, multiplied by any number of applicable multipliers.

The multipliers are as follows:

• With/Without Matadors:The number of top trumps held or not held by the declarer in unbroken sequence from the highest (Jack of clubs): Example, 'With 1' indicates you have the Jack of Clubs, but not the Jack of Spades. 'Without 3' indicates you have the Jack of Diamonds, but no higher Jacks. 'With 11' would indicate your hand and Skat together contain all 11 trumps.
• Game:Always applies - simply awarded for being the declarer.
• Hand:Awarded to a declarer who did not look at the Skat
• Schneider: Either side takes 90 card points
• Schneider Announced: Declarer announced Schneider, Schwarz, or Open
• Schwarz: Either side gets every trick
• Schwarz Announced:Declarer announced Schwarz, or Open
• Ouvert: Declarer announced they'll take every trick with an Open hand

Note that for the purposes of Matadors the Skat counts as being part of the declarer's hand - not looking at the Skat thus might cause you to accidentally overvalue your contract, as the Skat might contain a matador you didn't account for.

Because the Matadors are counted from the declarer's original hand it's best to take note of them early, or have each player keep hold of their own cards played through the hand as would be common in f.i Bridge, so that the original hands of each player can be reformed after the round concludes - albeit this isn't a requirement so long as the declarer is able to recall how many matadors they are with or without.

The Schneider and Schwarz multipliers count regardless of which team achieves them, and so a particularily disasterous round for a declarer might see their penalty points pushed further than their initial contract suggested

Example: You, as the declarer, call for a Hearts contract, look at the Skat, and have the following trumps: HJ DJ HA H10 HQ H8 H7. You are without 2 Matadors, and 1 Game. This contract is thus worth 30 points (3 * 10 = 30). If you were to take every trick you'd also earn a Schneider and Schwarz, boosting your contract from 30 to 50 (5 * 10).

Example 2: Bill declares a Grand contract, does not look at the Skat, declares Schneider, and has the following trumps: C11 S11 H11. The declarer is with 3 Matadors, 1 game, 1 Hand, and 2 Schneider (1 for announced, 1 for made) for a total of 6 multipliers. The base value of Grand is 24, and so the contract is worth a whopping 144 points (24 * 6).

Because you always have the game multiplier, and because you always either have or do not have the Jack of Clubs, the minimum multiplier is 2. Thus, the lowest contract you can score is 18: 2 * 9 for a minimum diamond trump contract.

Null Contract

Null contracts are scored with fixed scoring: there are no multipliers to consider.

Ending the Game

The game ends after a predetermined number of rounds have been played. Here on Cardgames.io the game ends after 12 rounds, four deals per player. After the 12th round concludes the player with the most points wins.

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