Ultimate Book of Card Games: The Comprehensive Guide to More Than 350 Games (48 page)

A round of bidding, therefore, might look like this (with endhand ultimately becoming the Player with a winning bid of 24):

You may bid in multiples of three or four times the base value, though in general, bids above 100 are rare.

THE SKAT
Once the bidding is complete, the Player earns the right to select the game. This is Skat, so of course it’s not as simple as that. The Player has two choices (
hand play
or
skat play
) that greatly impact the final outcome. If the Player chooses hand play, the Player does not look at the skat, but instead sets it aside. The skat is ultimately awarded as follows:

In suit or grand games, the skat goes to the Player after the hand is over.

In reject and null games, the skat is ignored.

In skat play, the Player
does
look at the skat, and then declares a suit game (naming the suit of choice), grand game, null game, or reject game. Thereafter, the Player takes the skat into his hand and discards any two cards back into the skat. These cards will, at the end of play, be added to the Player’s point total (except in null and reject games, where the skat is ignored).

MULTIPLIERS
At this point, the Player has an inkling about whether his bid is too low (because his cards are stronger than originally suspected). If so, he may declare an “open” game, whereby only the Player’s cards are laid face up on the table for the opponents to see. The point benefit of playing—and winning—an open game comes later, when calculating the game score.

To increase the value of the bid even further, a Player may, before any cards are played, declare a
Schneider
(pledging to win 91 points in tricks) or a
Schwarz
(pledging to win
all
the tricks). These declarations may be invoked in conjunction with an open game, or on their own.

TRICK TAKING
The next step is to play some cards! The forehand leads (even if the forehand is not the Player) and the other players must always follow suit if possible. Otherwise, they may play a card from any suit, including trump. Tricks are won by the highest trump played, or else by the highest card in the leading suit. The trick winner leads the following trick.

Note that in suit games, a leading jack should be followed by the trump suit, not necessarily by the jack’s own suit. This is because in suit games, jacks are always considered trump. In a diamond suit game, for example, a leading J of hearts should be followed by a diamond, not a heart.

WINNING
The hand ends once all cards are played and all tricks are taken. Now it’s time to determine if the Player wins or loses his bid. In suit and grand games, the Player loses if the points earned in tricks (plus the two cards in the skat) contain fewer than 61 points, based on the following card values:

A Player also loses by declaring a Schneider or a Schwarz and then failing to achieve it. The final way to lose is by “overbidding”—for example, if the value of the Player’s game is less than his original bid. To determine if the
game value is less than the original bid, a bit of math is required (the game value = the base value x the sum of all multipliers). If this total is less than the original bid, the Player loses. The base value depends on the trump suit:

To find the multipliers, simply add together the following multiplier scores if they apply to the current hand:

Matadors
are trump cards in an
unbroken
sequence that are in, or missing from, the Player’s combined tricks and skat cards. The unbroken sequence must always run highest to lowest from J of clubs, J of spades, J of hearts, J of diamonds, followed by the remaining trump cards. The matador count stops as soon as the sequence is broken.

If you’re confused, let’s assume diamonds are trump. If the Player holds J of clubs, J of spades, J of hearts, A of diamonds, K of diamonds, he is “with three” matadors (J of clubs, J of spades, J of hearts in unbroken sequence). The A of diamonds, K of diamonds may not be counted, since the J of diamonds is missing. Now assume the Player holds J of clubs, J of spades, J of hearts, J of diamonds, A of diamonds, K of diamonds; he is now “with five” matadors (J of clubs, J of spades, J of hearts, J of diamonds, and A of diamonds in unbroken sequence). Or, assume the Player holds J of diamonds, A of diamonds, 10 of diamonds, K of diamonds, Q of diamonds. He is now “against three,” since the opponents must be holding J of clubs, J of spades, J of hearts in unbroken sequence.

The remaining multipliers are easy to calculate. If the Player declares and makes Schneider (91 points or more), the multiplier is calculated as follows: game (1), matadors (total with or against), and Schneider (announced, 3), for a total multiplier of at least 4 (or more, depending on the number of matadors). So if the base value was, say, 11 for a suit game in spades, and the multipliers add up to 5, then the game value is 11 x 5 = 55. And if the Player’s original bid was less than 55, the game is lost!

Finally, you now calculate the Player’s actual game score:

If the bid is successful and the game won, the Player scores the
game value
(which is likely higher than his original bid). For example, if the original bid is 40 and the final game value is 65, the Player earns 65 points for the win.

If the bid is unsuccessful, the Player loses the amount of the original bid (in hand play) or double the bid amount (in skat play).

NULL GAMES
Null hands have a fixed value. If the Player chooses a null game and wins no tricks, she earns a fixed number of points. Conversely, if the Player wins one or more tricks, she loses a fixed number of points.

REJECT GAMES
In Reject games, the player who takes the fewest points in tricks scores 10 points (the skat is ignored). If the Player took no tricks at all, she scores 20 points.

IRREGULARITIES & DISPUTES
The most serious faux pas in Skat is discarding an incorrect number of cards to the skat. The penalty is an instant forfeit. Other serious misdemeanors include looking at the skat when you’re not entitled to (penalty: you’re barred from bidding in the hand and you must deduct 10 points from your score), and failing to follow suit when you could have (penalty: if it’s the Player’s error, he loses the game, if it’s the opponents’ error, the Player is awarded an automatic win).

VARIATION 1: SCHAFKOPF

You could argue that Schafkopf is a game in its own right. Yet as an antecedent to Skat it shares many of that game’s features—minus much of the complexity. The same thirty-two-card deck is used, but in Schafkopf, there is a permanent trump suit of fourteen cards comprising (high to low) Q of clubs, Q of spades, Q of hearts, Q of diamonds, J of clubs, J of spades, J of hearts, J of diamonds, A of diamonds, 10 of diamonds, K of diamonds, 9 of diamonds, 8 of diamonds, 7 of diamonds. In the non-trump suits, cards rank (high to low) A, 10, K, 9, 8, 7.

The initial deal is identical to Skat, with ten cards to each player, plus two cards to the “window” (formerly the skat). There’s no bidding in Schafkopf. Instead, the player to the left of the dealer has the first chance to “take the window” and become the Player. If that player passes, the next player clockwise may elect to take the window, and so on. The Player takes the window cards and discards two cards back into the window. The other two players form a temporary partnership against the Player.