SKAT

card game played in Germany, where it is the most popular card game, and by Germans throughout the world. It is an elaboration of schafkopf (sheepshead), a Wendish game dating at least to the mid-18th century, and includes features from tarok and kalabrias. Skat is for three players. A pack of 32 cards, omitting the 2s, 3s, 4s, 5s, and 6s, is used. Each player receives 10 cards; the remaining 2 are dealt face down for a skat (widow). The players bid a certain number of points, the lowest usually being 10 or 18, depending on the variant of the game being played. The high bidder then names one of about 15 games that will be played out. In the game tournee, trump is fixed by a card turned from the skatit may be a grand (in which only knaves are trumps) if a knave is turned, or trumps may be the suit of the knave. Solo is played without using the skat: the player names a trump suit, or grand. Gucki is a grand using the skat. Null is a bid to take no tricks, at no trumps. Ramsch is played if all three players pass, the object being to win fewest points in tricks, with knaves trumps. The bidding and scoring values of the games are determined by their assigned base values times the sum of all due multipliers. The multipliers arise from various sourcespoints won in play, prediction or announcement as to this outcome, and matadors (top trumps in unbroken sequence). To make his bid, a declarer must take a majority of the 120 card points: aces count 11, 10s count 10, kings 4, queens 3, knaves 2. Except in ramsch, the other two players become temporary partners to try to defeat the bidder. Rauber skat, popular in club play but not in tournaments, eliminates the game tournee. Instead, the high bidder always has the option of taking the skat or of playing without it. In the latter case, he earns an extra multiplier. Rauber skat is gradually displacing the original version of skat.