Skat

This is a 200+ year old German trick-taking card game and is the national card game of Germany.

Number of Players

The game is played with 3 players.

Set Up

• A 52-card deck

Remove all cards of all suits lower than 7 with Aces high. Deal 10 cards to each player. Place the remaining two face down in a pile called the “skat”. Next, players place bids. The highest bidder goes first and is called the “soloist”. The soloist will then choose any potential trump suit.

Game Play

Players take turns playing cards from their hand. Ranking from highest to lowest, including their point values, are Aces (11), Ten (10), Kings (4), Queens (3), Jacks (2), the remainder are worth 0 points. The winner of each trick is determined by either the highest ranking card of the trump suit, if any, or the highest ranking card if no trump suit was played. This continues until there are no more cards remaining.

The Skat

At any time, the soloist may take the skat into their hand and afterwards discard two cards from their hand.

Winning the Game

At the end of the game, everyone calculates the point values of all cards won in the tricks. If the soloist wins 61 points, they are declared the winner. Otherwise, the other players win.</p