![]() ![]() That year, thousands of soldiers were stationed in Altenburg in preparation for the Battle of Leipzig during the Napoleonic Wars. In 1813, court chamberlain Hans Carl Leopold von der Gabelentz, an administrator from the Thuringian city of Altenburg, near Leipzig, wrote down in a notebook his wins and losses for a game called "scat." It's the oldest known written reference to the card game. You need to be able to calculate in your head a good skat player obviously counts the cards passing in every round." German-suited cards have acorns, leaves, hearts and bells Image: Martin Schutt/dpa/picture-alliance/ dpa How it started "And the winner is always the one who has more as half of the points," explains Ehlers.įor him and for many other skat fans, the skill factor is more important than the chance factor in this game. Each card has a certain value, and the whole game is worth 120 points. Traditionally, German-suited playing cards -with acorns, leaves, hearts, bells - were used, but the internationally widespread French-suited ones work as well, leaving out a number of cards as there are only 32 in the game. The players in the defending team, however, cannot communicate with each other - except through the cards they decide to play. The highest bidder plays solo against the two others, who form a temporary alliance for the round. It involves an auction at the beginning of each round, based on each player's prospect of winning according to the cards they've been dealt. Skat is a three-player strategy card game. Jan Ehlers contributed to having skat listed as a German UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage asset Image: Elizabeth Grenier/DWĪs the former deputy president of the German Skat Association, Ehlers promoted the successful bid to have the game listed by the German branch of UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2016. In Berlin alone there are 200 associations meeting up at least once a week to play, says Ehlers. "With poker, you can watch other people play for a half hour and then you can play, whereas most people play skat their whole life and they still don't get it," says skat expert Jan Ehlers.īut even with its seemingly puzzling rules, there are more people who play skat than football in Germany: some 20 to 25 million, according to the estimates of the German Skat Association. But to be honest, as a Canadian who's been living for 15 years in Germany and who's otherwise well integrated in the country, it's nice to know I still have something left to learn that would "make me even more German": how to play skat.Īnd to my defense, it's not a game you can simply pick up through observation. The last player standing wins the game and, normally, a monetary prize made from the players’ contributions.įor more information on Thirty One and its rules, check out Wikipedia’s article here or Pagat’s article here.To start out, full disclosure: I'm not sure I'll ever learn. When a player loses 4 times, they are out of the game. If the player who knocks has the lowest hand, they give up a lost of 2 rather than 1. The player with the lowest hand loses for that round. All other players then have one more draw to try and improve their hand. When a player is comfortable with their hand, they knock on the table. ![]() If a player has a three of a kind, the hand is worth 30 points. ![]() For example, if a player has an Aces of Spades, an 8 of Spades, and a King of Hearts, the player’s hand is worth 19. Only cards of the same suit count as points. When it is their turn, players choose to either pick a card from the stock or from the discard pile and then they must discard one of their cards, all in an attempt to get a hand as close or equal to 31. The player to the left of the dealer begins gameplay. The top card of the stock is flipped over, placed beside it and becomes the discard pile. The remaining deck forms that stock and it is place in the middle of the play area. The dealer shuffles the deck and passes out three cards to each player in a clockwise fashion. The player with the lowest card becomes the dealer. Each player draws one card from a shuffled deck. If you are looking for cards to play Thirty One with, check out a standard deck here or one of our more recent arrivals here.īefore gameplay can begin, a dealer must be selected. The objective of the game is to have a hand equal to or as close to 31 as possible.įor more casino type games, check out our guides for Blackjack and Seven Card Stud. In Thirty One, Aces are worth 11 points, face cards are worth 10 points and numbered cards are worth their pip value. Thirty One, or Scat, is a casino type card game for 2 or more people and is played with a standard 52 playing card deck. The hand above shows 13 points) Card Game Rules (In Thirty One, only cards of the same suit count. ![]()
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