The Penguin Book of Card Games: Everything You Need to Know to Play Over 250 Games (66 page)

Jokers are wild, and one or both may represent any natural

card(s) in any combination except

1. a singleton, where the High Joker beats everything, and the

Low Joker beats any natural card; and

2. any of the three special combinations.

There is no ranking of suits, and in no circumstance may you play

a combination equal in rank to that of the previous player. For

example, you cannot fol ow 8-8-8 with 8-

-

, or vice versa;

nor 9-9-9-A-A with 9-

-

-3-6, or vice versa.

A player who runs out of cards drops out of play. If that player

was due to lead, having won the round, the lead passes to the next

active player on the right. When the penultimate active player runs

out, the only player with cards remaining is al owed, if able, to win

the round by playing a higher combination. It is highly

advantageous to be the first out of cards and severely

disadvantageous to be the last.

Score Before the scoring, whoever was the last left in must

surrender al the cards they won in tricks, plus any cards stil

remaining in their hand, to the player who went out first. Everyone

scores the total value of al the counters they have won (which wil

be zero in the case of the last left in). The scores for each deal wil

total 100.

Second and subsequent deals Whoever came last in the previous

hand shuf les the cards and sets them down when they have been

cut. Whoever came first then draws first to the next ‘deal’ and also

cut. Whoever came first then draws first to the next ‘deal’ and also

leads to the first round of it.

Game Play up to any agreed target, such as 500 or 1000 points.

8 Ace-Ten games

Many of Europe’s most popular card games feature cards counting

Ace 11, Ten 10, King 4, Queen 3, Jack 2. Lower numerals usual y

have no value, and tricks as such are pointless in themselves. With

30 points in each suit and 120 in the whole pack, games are

typical y won by taking at least 61 card-points in tricks. There is

usual y a penalty for taking less than 31 (cal ed schneider, from

schneiden, ‘to cut’, because the losers are thereby cut downtosize),

andaheavier one for losing every trick (schwarz, ‘black’, because

their reputation is thereby blackened).

The ‘Ace-11, Ten-10’ pat ern is first recorded in 1718 for the

French game of Brusquembil e, but may now be described as the

Skat Schedule from its most il ustrious manifestation in Germany’s

national card game. Many of its relatives also enjoy the status of

national or regional games and are played with the short pack

associated with the area in which they are practised. The schedule

has even spread southwards into Spanish and Italian games, where,

because Ten does not appear in those countries’ native cards, the

10-point value is ascribed instead to the Seven or the Three.

A notable feature of these games is that al are played with packs

stripped down to 40, 36, 32, 24 or even 20 cards. This speeds up

the game by dropping the uninteresting non-counters, and has two

interesting repercussions. One is the preponderance of games

suitable for three players, which has never beenasuitable number

for the Anglo-American 52-card pack. The other is the variability of

trick values, in that some are worthless, while others may carry

enough card-points to win the game. Once you have got used to the

possibility of winning a ten-trick game by taking only two tricks –

provided they contain suf iciently high counters – it is hard to work

provided they contain suf iciently high counters – it is hard to work

up much enthusiasm for plain-trick games like Whist or Solo.

As someof the fol owing games are extremely complicated, it is

worth mentioning that good introductory examples are Bohemian

Schneider for two players, Six-Bid or American Solo for three, and

Einwerfen or Sueca for four.

Skat

3 active players, 32 cards

Skat was developed between 1810 and 1820 by members of the

Tarock Club of Altenburg, some twenty miles south of Leipzig. It

was based on Wendish Schafkopf, with additional features

borrowed from Tarock, Ombre and German Solo. By the end of the

century it had become Germany’s national card game, having been

embraced and disseminated by the military and the studentry,

thereby acquiring countless local rules and variations. A ‘pure’ form

of the game promulgated by the newly formed German Skat

Congress at Altenburg in 1886 was considerably modified in 1928-

32. Thousands of local Skat clubs exist and annual national

tournaments are held. Worldwide tournaments are organized by the

International Skat-Players Association, to which are af iliated local

associations in Australia, Belgium, the Bahamas, Canada, Germany,

France, Namibia, Austria, Switzerland, Spain, South Africa and the

USA. These rules are fol owed by the British Skat Association,

founded in 2000, which holds regular tournaments in London. For

details, see .

The rules below are those prescribed for both national and

international tournaments by the Deutscher Skatverband and the

International Skat-Players Association. Having fol owed dif erent