Lothar's Skat Rules

The Deck

32 cards in four suits: Clubs, Spades, Hearts, and Diamonds. Each suit has eight ranks, from Seven up to Ace: 7, 8, 9, 10, Jack, Queen, King, Ace.

Augen show how much a card is worth. Together they add up to 120 in the whole deck, and that's exactly what every round is about: the declarer collects Augen through play until they hold more than half. The table shows how many Augen each rank is worth.

For example, the Clubs AceA alone is worth 11 Augen, while the Diamonds Nine9 is worth none.

Dealing

The dealer deals in rounds: three cards, then the two Skat cards face-down in the middle, then four, then three more. Everyone ends up with ten cards in hand. The deal rotates one seat every round, so everyone takes a turn as dealer in time.

The two face-down cards in the middle are the Skat. They belong to no one yet: only the eventual declarer picks them up and drückt two of their own cards face-down in their place. Until then, the Skat just sits there, untouched.

Forehand leads the first trick, then Middlehand, then the Dealer, also called Hinterhand. These are the three positions at the table, in the order the round actually runs.

Bidding

The auction decides who plays alone as the declarer against the other two. Naming a bid is making a Gebot: a promise that your own game will be worth at least that much by the end.

Two duels decide the round. First Middlehand bids against Forehand: Middlehand names values, Forehand answers "yes" or "pass". Then the dealer bids against whoever survives that first duel: now the dealer names the values, and the first duel's winner only answers. The order is easy to remember as "Geben, Hören, Sagen, Weitersagen" (deal, hear, say, say again): the dealer deals, Forehand hears the first value, Middlehand says it first, and in the second duel, the dealer says the numbers again.

Values climb the bidding ladder: 18, 20, 22, 23, 24, 27, 30, and onward.

18 is the cheapest game you're allowed to declare, the bottom rung of the bidding ladder. These numbers aren't invented for the auction; you meet them again in Scoring, where they're actually computed.

For example: Middlehand says 18, Forehand holds. Middlehand goes to 20, Forehand holds again. Middlehand says 22, and now Forehand passes. Middlehand has won the first duel and faces the dealer at 22. If the dealer also passes, Middlehand becomes declarer at 22.

If all three pass in the auction, Vorhandrecht kicks in: Forehand may still take the game anyway, at the minimum bid of 18.

Skat & Declaring

The declarer picks up the Skat, looks at all twelve cards, and drückt two of them face-down again. Even those two cards still count toward the declarer's Augen at the end, though they're never actually played.

The declarer can also leave the Skat untouched and play Hand instead: playing with exactly the ten cards dealt, having never seen the two Skat cards at all. That earns one more multiplier, since there's no chance to improve the hand first. The two Skat cards still count toward the declarer's Augen either way, even though they were never picked up.

The biggest trap for beginners: the four Jacks always belong to trump, no matter which suit is printed on them. In Farbspiel and Grand, the Clubs JackJ, the Spades JackJ, the Hearts JackJ, and the Diamonds JackJ are the four highest cards in the game, ranking above even the trump suit's own Ace. A Hearts Jack therefore doesn't count as Hearts when following suit; it counts as trump.

Three contracts to choose from. The declarer decides which one gets played, whether they discarded to the Skat or played Hand instead.

Farbspiel (a suit game): the declarer names one of the four suits as trump, say Clubs. The trump order starts with the four Jacks, then runs Ace, Ten, King, Queen, Nine, Eight, Seven of the chosen suit. The other three suits stay plain, with no trump of their own. For example, with Clubs as trump, even the Clubs Seven7 sticht the Ace of any other suit.

Grand: only the four Jacks are trump, with no suit added to them. All four suits otherwise rank as plain suits: Ace, Ten, King, Queen, Nine, Eight, Seven. With so few trumps in play, Grand is riskier, but it pays more too: its base value of 24 is double the highest Farbspiel base value.

Null: there's no trump at all, and the declarer must lose every single trick to win. Taking even one trick is enough to lose. Because nobody collects Augen in a Null game, none get counted at all: Null is won or lost purely on the tricks themselves.

Null uses its own rank order: Ace, King, Queen, Jack, Ten, Nine, Eight, Seven. The Ten slots in between the Jack and the Nine, instead of sitting right behind the Ace like it does everywhere else.

Ouvert: the declarer lays their whole hand face-up on the table, visible to everyone, before the first trick is even played. In Farbspiel and Grand, Ouvert only comes together with Hand, so without picking up the Skat, and it adds one more to the multiplier. In Null, Ouvert stands on its own: it works with or without picking up the Skat, and carries its own fixed game value.

Tricks

In play, the declarer faces the two defenders alone. Their tricks are counted together as one side at the end, never separately. Ten tricks decide every round, one card per player per trick.

1. Forehand plays the first card of the round. After that, whoever won the last trick leads the next one: the winner of a trick opens the following trick.
2. Follow suit: whoever holds the led suit in hand must play it. The classic trap here: Jacks are trump, never their printed suit. If Hearts is led, a Hearts Jack cannot follow suit with it, because it counts as trump, not as Hearts.
3. The highest trump in the trick wins. If no trump was played, the highest card of the led suit wins. A card that's neither trump nor the led suit can never win a trick.

For example: Forehand leads the Hearts AceA, Middlehand follows with the Hearts Nine9. The dealer has no Hearts left and adds the Diamonds JackJ, a trump. Because trump beats every plain-suit card, the dealer wins the trick, even though the Diamonds Jack is otherwise the weakest of the four Jacks.

Scoring

In Farbspiel and Grand, the declarer wins with at least 61 of the 120 Augen, more than half the whole deck. In Null, Augen don't count at all: the only way to win is to take not a single trick.

If the other side ends with 30 Augen or fewer, the declarer has reached Schneider. If the other side takes no tricks at all, it's Schwarz. Both add one more point to the multiplier, the number the game-value math multiplies by later.

Spielwert, the price the round is played over, comes from Grundwert times multiplier. The base value depends on the game type: Diamonds 9, Hearts 10, Spades 11, Clubs 12, Grand 24. Null instead has fixed values with no multiplier at all: 23, 35 with Hand, 46 with Ouvert, 59 with Ouvert Hand.

For example: the declarer declares a Clubs Farbspiel (base value 12) and holds mit 2, so Spiel 3. The game value comes out to 3 × 12 = 36.

Spitzen counts how many of the top trumps the declarer holds in an unbroken run, starting from the Clubs Jack, the highest trump of all, and running down the trump order from there.

If the declarer holds the Clubs Jack, they count mit (with): mit 1, mit 2, mit 3, for as long as the run continues unbroken from the top. If they're missing the Clubs Jack from the very start instead, they count ohne (without): ohne 1, ohne 2, ohne 3, in the same rhythm. Mit and ohne count the same, because both track the exact same thing: how far the top, unbroken trump run reaches, whichever side of it the declarer sits on.

For example: the declarer holds the Clubs JackJ and the Spades JackJ, but not the Hearts JackJ. The unbroken run from the top reaches two cards deep: mit 2, Spiel 3.

One is always added to the counted Spitzen, for the game itself: mit 2 becomes Spiel 3, ohne 4 becomes Spiel 5. That number is the multiplier the base value gets multiplied by in the end.

Hand, Schneider, Schwarz, and Ouvert each add one more point to the multiplier on top, whenever they apply.

If the declarer loses, it costs double: declaring is always a risk.

Bidding higher than the game turns out to actually be worth is called being überreizt (overbid). It counts as a loss regardless of the Augen collected, and like every loss it's charged double.

For example: the declarer bids up to 24, but ends up playing only a Diamonds Farbspiel with 1, Spiel 2. The actual game value is just 2 × 9 = 18, less than the bid of 24. The game counts as überreizt and lost, charged at the next game value that still covers 24: 3 × 9 = 27, doubled to 54 minus points.

Across rounds, your score is the classic running total. The leaderboard also compares you against the whole table through Net, the Bilanz: twice your score minus both opponents', zero-sum across the table, the fair answer to how you're really doing.

Ramsch

If all three pass in the auction, nobody wants to take the game. Instead of voiding the round, Lothar's table plays Ramsch instead: now suddenly nobody wants the tricks either.

Ramsch is played like Grand: only the Jacks are trump, in the same order as usual. The Skat stays face-down for the whole round and goes to whoever wins the last trick.

Whoever collects the most Augen loses, taking as many minus points as their Augen total. The other two stay at zero: they neither win nor lose. On a tie, whoever played earlier in the order loses.

Ramsch flips the usual goal on its head: normally everyone wants as many Augen as possible, in Ramsch everyone wants as few as possible. Holding back too cautiously in the auction can still cost you the round, just the other way around: too many Augen instead of too few.

If one player wins all ten tricks, that's a Durchmarsch: the hunted becomes the hunter, with +120 points instead.

Where Lothar plays differently

Otherwise: tournament rules, the ISkO. Lothar's table deviates in six places:

• Bidding runs strictly up the ladder, no skipping values.
• If everyone passes, Ramsch is played instead of voiding the round.
• Announced Schneider/Schwarz aren't offered yet.
• An overbid Null is charged at the next Null step.
• No Kontra/Re.
• No Jungfrau.