Skat made simple

This Nugget has been written by Red Panda on 24 Oct at 9:30AM

Category: Skat

skat made simple (Simpler maybe Smiling


There are 4 phases in a skat game,

1. Bidding
2. Declaring
3. Play
4. Scoring

1. Bidding


Bidding happens. The first player must bid , and others either match bid , raise or pass. The game will give you which option you are allowed. Match bid means you will take over the high bid. So if your opponent has bid 18, and you match, if they pass your bid of 18 will win rather than the original bid

You are bidding on hand value, not on number of tricks or points in your hand

Bidding happens until there is a winner.

Only the bidding winner can gain or lose game points. Not winning the bid your score will not change no matter what happens in the hand



2. Declare


This is where the bid winner sets the type of hand to be played.

You can pick a suit for trumps ( suit + jacks are trump) , grand contract ( just jacks are trumps) ,
null (misere lose all tricks)

There is 2 cards in the Skat. You get option to take the cards or not look at them.

If you take the cards, you can then disard any two cards you like. The points in the skat count towards declarers total

If you don't take the cards, then you get some other options (to declare schneider 90 points, shwartz (all points) , oevert (your opponent can see your cards)


Now, you win the hand by winning 61 game points ( or 90 or all tricks if declare those other options) and
hand value is higher than your winning bid.

If you win , you get hand value game points. Note hand value is bigger than your bid value. I had a bid value of 40, but hand value of 144, so I got 144 game points from that hand )

If you lose, you lose points 2 * hand value or 2 * bid value which every is larger

Thus overbidding can cost you a lot of points.





3. Play 




  • You must follow suit if you can, if you can't follow suit you can play any card.

  • Trumps will beat non trumps. Highest trump wins, Otherwise highest card of led suit wins 

  • Jack of clubs > jack of spades > jack of hearts > jack of diamonds > ace of trumps

  • Winner of trick leads next trick

  • Object is to win points of cards in your trick (Ace worth 11, 10 worth 10, King with 4, Queen worth 3, Jack worth 2) Winning 9 8 or 7 is worth nothing to you

  • Jacks are always trumps except if Null bid was declared

  • 10 beats Kings, and loses to Ace execpt if Null bid where they are normal between jack and 9 

  • The declarer is playing against the other 2. The other 2 should be trying to stop declarer getting the win condition

4. Scoring



The game is scored automatically for you , and depending on whether you achieve the winning condition the bid winner gains or lose points. These points are bsaed on game value, not bid value



If you go below -200 game points, you lose, If you get to 200 game points you win

If there is no winner or loser, another hand is started - go to phase 1 



Game value for null is 23, not taking skat null is 35 , if you open your cards null is 46.

There are no multipliers for null games.







Game value (except for null) is determined by Base * Multipliers



Multipliers are at least 2 (the rules say tops+multipliers- both are at least 1) 



Base is dependent on suit you bid Clubs = 12, Spades = 11, Hearts = 10, Diamonds = 9, Grand contract = 24.



Thus if you want to declare clubs, then bidding (phase 1 above) 24 would be ok, however if you want to bid Diamonds, then 18 is ok. If you want to bid grand contract, then 48 is a safe bid.



Because grand contract is worth so many more points, if you hand supports it , it is probably better to declare that.



Now you can get extra multipliers by having high trumps or not having trumps. If you have the two highest trumps (jack of clubs AND jack of spades) your mulitplier goes up by 1. If you have 3 highest trumps ( jack of clubs, jack of spades AND jack of hearts) your multiplier goes up by 2. etc etc

If you are missing the two highest trumps , your multiplier also goes up the same, but it becomes harder to win the required points in tricks



The other way your multiplier goes up, if you win 90 points you get extra multiplier, or an extra 2 if you win all trick.

It is therefore always better to win 90 points rather than just 61

alternatively if your opponents can win 90 points, you will lose more points



If you decided not to take the skat, then the multipliers higher, and can be much higher depending on what other options you choose. These are in the rules




Next

Now, having read this nugget, I suggest you read it one more time. That way you understand about phase 4 when you are reading about phase 1. 



When you play initially if you don't understand the terminology, then refer to this nugget and the rules. 



What I do each hand is to calculate my probably game value (section 4 above and more details in the rule) which depends on how many multipliers, so I know what sort of bid value that I can do.



Another small tip I have is that if you are forced to bid (ie first player to bid each hand) and your hand is not likely to win any bids then bidding null limits your loss to 46 points and you can live to play another hand, while bidding Diamonds can potentially lose 36 points, but if things go bad with multiplyers (e.g. you have no jacks) then you can lose many many more points.



So Have fun

 
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Nugget Comments
Difference in implementation
Posted on 13 Mar at 2:39PM by ChipsChap
"Another small tip I have is that if you are forced to bid (ie first player to bid each hand)"



By the official rules (ISPA and other governing bodies), a hand can be passed out. There is no forced bid by the first player. The forced bid is a variation in the GoldToken implementation. (I'd vote for eliminating this variation!)