Lothar's Skat Rules
Three players, 32 cards, one against two. Every round crowns a declarer who plays entirely alone against the other two. Here's the whole game — and further down, where Lothar's table plays its own way.
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The Deck
32 cards: four suits, eight ranks each, 7 through Ace.
Diamonds, Hearts, Spades, Clubs.
What a card is worth: the Augen table. 120 Augen sit in the whole deck.
| Card | Augen |
|---|---|
| Ace | 11 |
| Ten | 10 |
| King | 4 |
| Queen | 3 |
| Jack | 2 |
| 9 / 8 / 7 | 0 |
The point arcs on our cards carry the Augen along.
Dealing
The dealer rotates each round. 3 – Skat (2) – 4 – 3: ten cards each, two face-down as the Skat.
Forehand leads the first trick, then Middlehand, then the Dealer — the UI's position words.
Give, hear, say.
Bidding
The auction decides who plays alone as declarer against the other two — the bid is a promise: my game will be worth at least this much.
Two duels: Middlehand names values against Forehand ("yes" / "pass"), then the Dealer against whoever's left — "Geben, Hören, Sagen, Weitersagen" (deal, hear, say, say again).
Values climb the bidding ladder: 18, 20, 22, 23, 24, 27, 30, …
Everyone passes? Forehand may still take the game at 18 (Vorhandrecht).
Skat & Declaring
The declarer picks up the Skat and discards two cards back — those count toward the declarer's Augen at the end.
Or leave the Skat down: Hand, one multiplier more — the Skat still counts for the declarer.
Three contracts: Farbspiel — a suit is trump and the four Jacks lead it; Grand — only the Jacks are trump; Null — no trumps, the declarer must lose every trick.
Farbspiel, Grand, Null — and Ramsch, when everyone passes.
Clubs > Spades > Hearts > Diamonds — always.
Null reorders the ranks: the Ten slots in between the Jack and the Nine.
In Null, the Ten drops below the Jack.
Ouvert: hand face-up — in Farbspiel and Grand only as a Hand game; Null Ouvert works with or without picking up the Skat.
Tricks
- Ten tricks; Forehand leads the first, then the trick winner leads the next.
- Follow suit: hold the led suit, play the led suit. The classic trap: Jacks are trump, never their printed suit — a Hearts Jack cannot follow Hearts.
- Highest trump wins; if no trump was played, the highest card of the led suit wins.
Hearts led, no Hearts left in hand — even the Diamonds Jack takes the Ace.
Scoring
Farbspiel/Grand: 61 of 120 Augen win; Null: zero tricks.
Held the other side to 30 Augen or fewer: Schneider. Let them take zero tricks: Schwarz — each worth one extra on the multiplier.
Schneider, Schwarz.
Game value = base value (Diamonds 9, Hearts 10, Spades 11, Clubs 12, Grand 24) × multiplier. Null is fixed: 23 / Hand 35 / Ouvert 46 / Ouvert Hand 59.
The strongbox: the prize the round was played over.
The multiplier counts unbroken top trumps from the Clubs Jack downward, held ("mit") or missing ("ohne"), plus one — "mit 2, Spiel 3". Hand, Schneider, Schwarz, and Ouvert each add one.
Lost games cost double — declaring is the risk.
Bid higher than the game turned out to be worth? Überreizt (overbid) — lost, doubled, charged at the next value covering the bid.
Across rounds: your score is the classic running total; the leaderboard's Net (Bilanz) compares you against the table — twice yours minus both opponents', zero-sum, the fair "how am I doing" number.
Ramsch
All three pass → Ramsch: nobody wanted the game, now nobody wants the tricks.
Played like Grand (only the Jacks are trump); the Skat stays down and goes to whoever wins the last trick.
Most Augen loses — as minus points equal to the total. The other two stay at zero. On a tie, whoever sits earlier in play order loses.
All ten tricks is a Durchmarsch: +120, the hunted becomes the hunter.
Where Lothar plays differently
Otherwise: tournament rules, the ISkO. Lothar's table deviates in six places: