Skat Glossary
Skat has its own words for its own ideas: some borrowed nowhere else, some old table language nobody wrote down until now. Every term below gets a full explanation and a concrete example; click any highlighted word anywhere on the site to jump straight back here.
Game types
Farbspiel (suit game)
A Farbspiel is a suit game: one of the four suits is trump, and its four Jacks lead the trump order regardless of suit. The declarer's own suit choice (Clubs, Spades, Hearts, or Diamonds) sets the base value the round is played over.
A hand anchored by three or four Jacks and a strong side suit, say Clubs, plays as Farbspiel Clubs, the highest-value suit choice among the four.
Grand
Grand is the game type where only the four Jacks are trump — no suit is elevated, so every other card keeps its normal rank in its own suit. Grand carries the highest base value of the three game types, which is why a hand strong in Jacks but without one dominant suit often plays better as Grand than as a forced Farbspiel.
Four solid Jacks and scattered high side cards, with no suit long enough to dominate, is the textbook Grand hand.
Null
Null has no trump at all, and the goal reverses: the declarer must lose every single trick. The card order changes too (Sieben, Acht, Neun, Zehn, Bube, Dame, König, Ass), so the Ten drops below the Jack, and each Jack stays in its own suit rather than joining a trump group.
A hand with nothing higher than a Nine or Ten in most suits, and no dangerous combination that could accidentally win a trick, is a safe Null hand.
Ramsch
Ramsch is played when all three players pass in the auction: nobody wanted to declare a game, so instead of voiding the round, Lothar's table plays it out as a three-way scramble. It runs like Grand (only the four Jacks are trump), but there is no declarer: all three players play for themselves, and whoever collects the most Augen loses that total as minus points. Winning every trick (a Durchmarsch) flips the whole round: +120 instead.
Everyone passes at 18; the round is dealt straight into Ramsch, and from here on every player is quietly trying to lose.
Ouvert (open hand)
Ouvert means the declarer's whole hand goes face-up on the table before the first card is even led: every opponent sees exactly what they're playing against. It's the boldest way to declare a Null or a Farbspiel/Grand Hand, and it multiplies the game's value accordingly: nothing to hide means nothing to hedge.
A completely safe Null hand (nothing that could ever be forced to win a trick) is the one that can afford to go Ouvert, since revealing it changes nothing about how it plays.
Durchmarsch (sweep)
Durchmarsch means winning all ten tricks in a Ramsch round. Instead of losing for collecting the most Augen the way Ramsch usually punishes, the result flips: whoever sweeps every trick wins the round outright, +120 points, while the other two stay at zero.
In a Ramsch round, one player keeps winning trick after trick until all ten are theirs: a Durchmarsch, +120 points instead of the usual minus score.
The auction
Reizen (bidding)
Reizen is the auction that decides who plays alone as declarer. Two players duel at a time: Mittelhand against Vorhand first, then the Dealer against whoever won that first duel, one of the two naming higher and higher numbers along a fixed ladder while the other holds each with a yes or passes. Naming a number, bieten or sagen, is a promise: my hand is worth at least this much. That number itself is the Gebot; there is no separate word for the value climbed to versus the value finally played, so "ein hohes Gebot" always means the same thing. Reizen decides only who gets to play, not what they play — that comes after, in the declaration.
Mittelhand bids 18, Vorhand holds; Mittelhand raises to 20, Vorhand passes: Mittelhand's Gebot of 20 wins that duel and moves on to face the Dealer.
Positionen (Vorhand, Mittelhand, Hinterhand)
Skat's traditional table names three seats by their turn order: Vorhand, Mittelhand, and Hinterhand. Lothar's interface uses those same seats, labeled Forehand, Middlehand and Dealer, and pictures alongside them what each one is doing at that moment: hear, say, and give. The seat itself rotates with the dealer every round. Each of the three gets its own entry below.
Vorhand leads the first trick, then Mittelhand, then Hinterhand: Lothar's interface calls those seats Forehand, Middlehand and Dealer, and pictures what each one does as an ear, a mouth and a hand.
Vorhand (the seat that hears the first bid)
Vorhand is the seat that hears the auction's very first bid: Mittelhand names a number, and Vorhand answers yes or pass. Lothar's interface pictures this seat's role with an ear: hear. Vorhand also leads the very first trick of the round, before any card has been played.
Mittelhand opens the bidding at 18; Vorhand, holding four trump including the Clubs Jack and the Spades Jack, answers yes without hesitation. Vorhand also plays the very first card of the round, leading into the opening trick.
Mittelhand (the seat that speaks first)
Mittelhand is the seat that speaks first in the auction, naming the opening bid and climbing the ladder against Vorhand until one of them passes. Lothar's interface pictures this seat's role with a mouth: say. Mittelhand sits between Vorhand and the dealer, and once the first duel is decided its winner goes on to face the dealer in the second.
Mittelhand opens at 18 and keeps raising as Vorhand keeps answering yes; at 23 Vorhand finally passes, so Mittelhand's Gebot of 23 carries into the second duel against the Dealer.
Hinterhand (the dealer's seat)
Hinterhand is the seat that deals the cards for the round, and Lothar's interface calls it the Dealer, picturing that job as a hand: give. Hinterhand also speaks last in the auction: once Vorhand and Mittelhand have settled their own duel between themselves, the dealer bids against whichever of the two survived it, in a second and final duel.
Vorhand and Mittelhand duel up to 22 before Vorhand passes; Hinterhand, the dealer, then opens the second duel against Mittelhand at 23.
Hand
Hand has two senses that share one word. Your hand is simply the ten cards you're dealt and hold; everyone always has one. To play Hand is a specific declaration: the winning bidder leaves the Skat's two cards face-down, untouched, and plays with only the original ten. It's a bet on the hand you were dealt rather than what the Skat might improve, and it raises the game's value in exchange for that risk.
Six or more solid trumps in hand are usually enough to play Hand outright: skipping the Skat entirely and declaring blind.
Drücken (discarding to the Skat)
Drücken (also abdrücken) is what the declarer does after picking up the Skat's two cards: look at all twelve, then discard two back down, face-down, before declaring the game. The two discarded cards still count toward the declarer's Augen at the end — they're never played, but their points are never lost either.
After picking up two low, off-suit cards, the declarer drückt them straight back down unplayed: they weren't going to win anything, but their Augen still bank at the round's end.
Skat (the two cards)
The Skat is the two cards dealt face-down to the table, separate from anyone's hand, at the start of every round. The winning bidder may pick them up (adding them to their hand before discarding two back down) or leave them untouched to play Hand. Either way, the two Skat cards' Augen always count for the declarer at the end — picked up or not.
Two cards, the Seven of Hearts and the Eight of Diamonds, sit face-down as the Skat; the declarer picks them up, sees nothing worth keeping, and drückt the same two cards straight back.
Rollen (roles: declarer, defender, ally)
Every round splits the table into one player against two: the Alleinspieler on one side, and the two players trying to stop them on the other. Each round mints a fresh declarer, so every seat plays both sides of that split across a session. Each of the three roles gets its own entry below.
You win the auction and become the Alleinspieler; the two players across from you are now your Gegenspieler, and from either of their seats, the other one is simply their Mitspieler.
Alleinspieler (the declarer)
Alleinspieler is the declarer: the one player who won the auction and plays the round alone against the other two. Winning the Reizen doesn't just grant the right to play; it hands over the game-type choice too, so Alleinspieler is also the player who decides whether the round is Farbspiel, Grand, or Null. That single seat carries the round's entire risk: a normal win pays the Spielwert once, but a loss costs double.
You win the bidding at 20 and become Alleinspieler; you pick up the Skat, discard two cards, and declare a Diamonds Farbspiel, so the two Gegenspieler now play together to hold you under 61 Augen.
Gegenspieler (the defenders)
Gegenspieler are the two players working against the Alleinspieler, the defenders. They don't share cards or see each other's hands, but they share one goal: stop the declarer from reaching enough Augen, or from completing whatever a Null game demands. The two Gegenspieler's Augen are pooled and judged together at the end, win or lose as one side.
The Alleinspieler plays a Grand; both Gegenspieler take every trick they can from the declarer, and at the end their combined Augen decide whether the Alleinspieler stayed under 61.
Mitspieler (your fellow defender)
Mitspieler is what a defender calls the other defender: your ally for that one round, never a fixed third role of its own. Whichever of the two Gegenspieler you aren't is your Mitspieler, and the two of you win or lose together even though you never see each other's cards. Dazulegen, dropping a high card onto a trick your Mitspieler is already winning, is the clearest way that partnership shows up in play.
You're one of the two Gegenspieler; your Mitspieler wins a trick with a high trump, so you drop your Ass onto it instead of playing it safe, banking eleven Augen for your side.
Card play
Farben (suits)
Skat's four suits carry two naming worlds at once: the traditional German names (Eichel, Grün, Herz, Schellen) and the French-suited names actually printed on the cards (Kreuz, Pik, Herz, Karo — Clubs, Spades, Hearts, Diamonds). Both describe exactly the same four suits, and the order of their base values is fixed.
| German | French | |
|---|---|---|
| Eichel | Kreuz | |
| Grün | Pik | |
| Herz | Herz | |
| Schellen | Karo |
Grün is what the cards themselves call Pik: playing "Grün" makes Pik the trump suit for the round.
Eichel (Clubs)
Eichel is the traditional German name for the suit printed as Kreuz (Clubs) on the cards. It carries the highest Grundwert of the four suits, 12, making it the most valuable trump suit choice in a Farbspiel. Except in Null, which has no trump suit at all, the Eichel Bube is always the single highest-ranking Jack.
The Eichel Bube outranks every other Jack in every game type but Null: even the Grün Bube has to give way to it.
Grün (Spades)
Grün is the traditional German name for the suit printed as Pik (Spades) on the cards. Its Grundwert sits at 11, between Herz and Eichel. The name comes from the green leaf symbol on old German playing cards, not from the French pike shape.
A Grün Farbspiel plays for a Grundwert of 11, one point above a Schellen game and one below an Eichel game.
Herz (Hearts)
Herz is the one suit whose German and French names are the same word: both naming worlds call it Herz (Hearts). Its Grundwert sits at 10, right in the middle of the four Farbspiel values.
In a Herz Farbspiel, every Herz card is trump, not only the four Jacks.
Schellen (Diamonds)
Schellen is the traditional German name for the suit printed as Karo (Diamonds) on the cards, named for the small bells (Schellen) on the old German deck. It carries the lowest Grundwert of the four suits, 9, making it the cheapest Farbspiel choice.
A Schellen Farbspiel costs only 9 in Grundwert, compared to 12 for the identical hand played as an Eichel game.
Bube und Dame (Jack and Queen)
Like the Farben, two of the card ranks carry two names. On these pages and in the game they are called Bube and Dame, after the French-suited deck whose suit signs are printed on our cards. The German-suited deck, the Altenburger Blatt, calls the same two cards Unter and Ober, and that is where the corner letter on our cards comes from: in the German UI it reads U for the Bube and O for the Dame by default, and the Card faces setting on the start screen and in the pause menu switches the pair to B and D. The English UI reads J and Q either way.
| German | French |
|---|---|
| Unter | Bube |
| Ober | Dame |
The Eichel Bube is the highest trump in every game type but Null. Where the German-suited deck is on the table, the very same card is called the Eichel Unter, same picture and same rank.
Trumpf (trump)
Trumpf is whichever cards outrank every other suit for the round: always the four Jacks, plus (in a Farbspiel only) the whole of the declared suit. Trump cards beat any non-trump card regardless of what was led, and within trump the order runs Jacks (Clubs highest, then Spades, Hearts, Diamonds) above the suit's own Ass-Zehn-König-Dame-Neun-Acht-Sieben run. Grand has trump too, just the four Jacks alone, no suit joining them.
In a Diamonds Farbspiel, the weakest trump (the Diamonds Sieben) still beats the strongest non-trump card in the deck, the Clubs Ass.
Bedienen (following suit)
Bedienen is the basic rule of every trick: if you hold a card in the suit that was led, you must play one: you can't hold it back to save it, and you can't play a different suit while you still have the led one. Except in Null, the four Jacks never count as their printed suit here, only as trump: when a suit is led, its Jack does not follow it. Only once you're completely out of the led suit are you free to play whatever you like: a trump to take the trick, or any other card.
Hearts is led; a player holding three Hearts must bedienen with one of them: playing a Diamond instead isn't legal while a Heart sits in hand.
Stechen (trumping/beating a trick)
A trick is the three cards played to the center of the table, one from each player: the winner takes all three and leads the next trick. Stechen means winning it by playing a card that beats what's already down, most often by trumping a suit you're out of, but the word covers any winning play: the highest card of the led suit sticht it too, if no trump appears. Trump always sticht a plain-suit lead, no matter how low the trump or how high the suit card.
Clubs is led, a player has no Clubs left, and plays the Diamonds Bube: even the weakest trump sticht the strongest possible Clubs card.
Schmieren (fattening partner's trick)
Schmieren is the Skat term for adding a high-point card to a trick you aren't winning yourself, but your own side already has: the card doesn't need to win anything, it just hands over its points, which would otherwise go to waste. The name comes from the everyday word schmieren ("to smear/spread", as in buttering bread), figuratively, you spread a little extra onto a trick that's already yours. Everyday copy on this site calls the same move dazulegen; Schmieren is the word Skat rules and experienced players actually use for it.
Your Mitspieler leads the unbeatable Clubs Bube; with no trump left, you follow with your Ass of Hearts instead of a low card: it can't help win a trick that's already won, so it schmiert eleven safe Augen onto it instead.
Blank
Blank has two related senses. A card is blank (Ass blank) when it's the only card you hold in that suit, a singleton with nothing to protect it once it's forced out. A suit itself goes blank (blanke Farbe) once you've played or discarded every card in it, leaving you void: you can no longer be forced to follow suit there at all.
Holding only the Herz-Ass and nothing else in Hearts, that Ass sits blank: the very next Hearts lead strips it away with nothing left to hide behind.
Scoring
Augen (card points)
Augen are the point value printed into every card, not a rank you count: 120 in total across the whole deck. Ass is worth 11, Zehn 10, König 4, Dame 3, Bube 2, and the Sieben/Acht/Neun are worth nothing at all. Whoever's side collects more than 60 of those 120 Augen across all ten tricks wins a Farbspiel or Grand round outright. Always counted in the plural, never "ein Auge".
| A | Ace | 11 |
| 10 | Ten | 10 |
| K | King | 4 |
| Q | Queen | 3 |
| J | Jack | 2 |
| 9 8 7 | Nine, Eight, Seven | 0 |
A trick made of the Ass and Zehn of the same suit carries 21 Augen: over a sixth of the whole round's total, riding on just two cards.
Spielwert (game value)
Spielwert is the final price the round was played over: the Grundwert (base value) multiplied by however many multiplier steps the hand earned (Spitzen, Hand, Schneider, Schwarz, Ouvert all add to it). A won round scores exactly this many points; a lost one costs double the same number.
A Clubs Farbspiel's base value of 12, held with three unbroken top trumps (a multiplier of four), plays for a Spielwert of 48 and would cost 96 if it were lost instead.
Grundwert (base value)
Grundwert is the fixed starting number each game type carries before any multiplier is applied: Diamonds 9, Hearts 10, Spades 11, Clubs 12 for a Farbspiel (the trump suit sets it), 24 for Grand, and a separate short ladder for Null depending on whether it's Hand and/or Ouvert. For a Farbspiel or Grand, every multiplier (Spitzen, Hand, Schneider, Schwarz, Ouvert) multiplies this one number to reach the final Spielwert; the Null values are fixed, with no multiplier at all.
| Diamonds | 9 | |
| Hearts | 10 | |
| Spades | 11 | |
| Clubs | 12 | |
| Grand | 24 |
Clubs carries the highest Farbspiel Grundwert of the four suits, 12; the same Spitzen multiplier is worth more riding on a Clubs game than on a Diamonds one.
Spitzen (mit/ohne Jacks)
Spitzen counts the unbroken run of top trumps from the Clubs Bube downward, and it sets one of the multiplier steps that scales the Grundwert into the Spielwert. Holding the Clubs Bube counts as mit (with): one, two, three Spitzen for as many top trumps in a row as you hold; missing the Clubs Bube entirely counts the same way as ohne (without). Either way the multiplier grows by one for every unbroken step, mit or ohne.
Holding the Clubs Bube and the Spades Bube but not the Hearts Bube plays mit zwei: two unbroken top trumps, plus one for the game itself, so Spiel 3.
Schneider
Schneider is a scoring threshold, not a separate game type: holding the defending side to 30 Augen or fewer (or, from the declarer's losing side, failing to reach even 31) adds an extra multiplier step on top of the normal win or loss. It's a margin of victory that costs the losing side more, not a different way to play the round.
The declarer's side takes 95 of the 120 Augen, leaving the defenders with only 25, under the 30 line. The round counts Schneider on top of the ordinary win.
Schwarz
Schwarz is Schneider's harder sibling: the losing side takes zero tricks at all, not just few Augen. It stacks another multiplier step on top of Schneider's: a round can be won both Schneider and Schwarz at once, since taking no tricks means holding no Augen either.
The declarer wins all ten tricks; the defenders never got to play a single card that stuck, so the round counts Schwarz, and Schneider along with it, since zero tricks means zero Augen too.
Überreizt (overbid)
Überreizt is what happens when the Alleinspieler's bid was higher than the game they actually ended up playing is worth. It counts as a loss regardless of the Augen collected, and like every loss it's charged double, at the next game value that still covers the bid.
The Alleinspieler bids up to 24 but ends up playing only a Diamonds Farbspiel with 1, Spiel 2: that's 2 × 9 = 18, less than the 24 bid. The charge falls on the next value that still covers 24, 3 × 9 = 27, doubled to 54 minus points.