Officers' Skat (Offiziersskat)

Full rules

1. Overview
2. The cards
3. Setup
4. Playing the tricks
5. Winning a hand
6. Scoring
7. Kontra and Re
8. Winning the game
9. Tips for beginners
10. Variants

Overview

Officers' Skat is a version of Skat for two players. Instead of holding your cards in your hand, you lay them out on the table in front of you: half face down, half face up on top of them. You can only play the cards you can see, and every time you play one, the card underneath comes to light.

It is a trick-taking game: each player plays one card, the higher card wins both, and these two cards form a trick. One player, the declarer, chooses the trumps. Whoever collects at least 61 of the 120 card points in their tricks wins the hand.

• Players: exactly 2.
• You need: one standard 52-card deck, a table with some room, and paper and pencil for scoring.

The cards

Officers' Skat uses 32 cards: the 7, 8, 9, 10, J, Q, K and A of each suit. Take out all 2s, 3s, 4s, 5s and 6s and the jokers.

Trumps and card order

Trumps are cards that beat every card of another suit. As in Skat, the four Jacks are always the highest trumps, in this fixed order:

J♣ (highest) – J♠ – J♥ – J♦

In a suit game the declarer also names a trump suit, whose cards follow directly below the Jacks. In every suit the cards rank:

A – 10 – K – Q – 9 – 8 – 7

The Ten ranks just below the Ace. With clubs as trumps there are 11 trumps: J♣ J♠ J♥ J♦ A♣ 10♣ K♣ Q♣ 9♣ 8♣ 7♣. A Jack always belongs to the trumps, never to its printed suit.

In a Grand, only the four Jacks are trumps and all four suits are ordinary suits.

Card points

All 32 cards together are worth 120 card points.

Setup

Each player ends up with 16 cards in front of them, laid out in 8 small piles of two: a face-down card with a face-up card on top. The piles form two rows of four.

1. Dealer: decide at random who deals first; after that the deal alternates. The other player is called forehand. Forehand is always the declarer, the player who chooses trumps.
2. The dealer shuffles, forehand cuts.
3. The dealer lays out 4 cards face down in a row in front of forehand, then 4 face down in front of themselves.
4. The dealer places 4 cards face up on forehand's face-down cards, one on each.
5. Forehand now chooses the game, having seen only these four cards: a trump suit (clubs, spades, hearts or diamonds) or Grand.
6. The dealer places 4 cards face up on their own face-down cards. Now the dealer may say "Kontra" (see Kontra and Re).
7. The remaining 16 cards are dealt the same way as a second row: 4 face down to each player, then 4 face up on top of them. If the dealer said Kontra, forehand may now answer "Re".

Example: Forehand's first four face-up cards are J♣, J♥, A♠ and 10♠. With two Jacks and two strong spades, she announces spades as trumps.

Playing the tricks

1. Forehand leads (plays the first card) to the first trick. After that, whoever won the last trick leads.
2. You may only play a face-up card that is on top of a pile. Face-down cards cannot be played until they are turned over.
3. Follow suit: the other player must play a card of the suit that was led if they have one face up. Remember that Jacks are trumps: if a Jack is led, you must play a trump if you can; if spades are led, you cannot follow with J♠.
4. If you can't follow suit, you may play any visible card – either trump it (play a trump and win the trick) or throw off any other card.
5. Who wins: the highest trump in the trick, or, if there is no trump, the higher card of the suit that was led.
6. The winner puts the trick face down in their own pile.
7. Turn over: after each trick, any face-down card that no longer has a card on top of it is turned face up. It can be played from now on.

After 16 tricks, all cards have been played.

Example: Hearts are trumps. Ben leads 10♣. Anna has no face-up club, but a face-up 7♥ – a trump. She plays it and wins the trick worth 10 points. Both then turn up the face-down cards that were under 10♣ and 7♥. Anna leads next.

Winning a hand

Both players count the card points in their tricks. The declarer (forehand) wins with 61 or more card points. At 60–60 the declarer loses.

Scoring

Only the declarer scores. The game value is worked out as in Skat:

1. Base value of the game: diamonds 9, hearts 10, spades 11, clubs 12, Grand 24.
2. Matadors ("tops"): once all cards are turned up, look at the declarer's 16 cards. If the declarer has J♣, count how many Jacks they have in an unbroken row from the top ("with 1, 2, 3 or 4"). If the declarer does not have J♣, count how many Jacks are missing in a row from the top ("without 1, 2, 3 or 4").
3. Multiplier = matadors + 1.
4. Game value = base value × multiplier.
5. Schneider: if the loser has fewer than 30 card points, the value is doubled (unlike Skat, exactly 30 is not yet Schneider). Schwarz: if the loser took no trick at all, the value is multiplied by four instead.
6. Kontra doubles the value again, Re doubles it once more.

If the declarer wins, they score plus the game value. If they lose, they score minus twice the game value.

Example: Diamonds are trumps. Anna, the declarer, has J♣, J♠ and J♥ but not J♦: "with 3", multiplier 4. Game value (3 + 1) × 9 = 36. She takes 94 card points, Ben only 26 – Schneider: Anna scores +72. Had she taken only 58 card points, she would have scored −72.

Kontra and Re

After seeing their first four face-up cards, the dealer may say "Kontra" if they think the declarer will lose. This doubles the game value. When the second row is dealt, the declarer may answer "Re" if they still expect to win, doubling it again (four times in total). Both calls are optional.

Winning the game

Agree beforehand how many hands to play – an even number, so that both players declare equally often. The player with the higher total at the end wins.

Tips for beginners

• Choose trumps carefully. You see only four of your 16 cards. Jacks and high cards in one suit are a good sign; the other twelve are a gamble.
• Look at what's underneath. Playing a card turns up a new one. Sometimes it pays to play from a pile just to see what's below it.
• Watch your opponent's layout. You can see half of their cards. Lead suits they cannot follow with face-up cards, and keep your Aces and Tens away from their trumps.
• Count the points. 61 is the magic number; keep a rough count of the Aces and Tens already taken.

Variants

All optional – agree on them before playing.

• Passing: forehand may pass instead of choosing trumps. Then the dealer may choose once both players have four face-up cards. If both pass, the hand is played as Ramsch: without any trumps – according to German Wikipedia, unlike Ramsch in Skat, not even the Jacks are trumps – and whoever takes fewer card points wins.
• Null: some rules also allow a Null game as in Skat, in which the declarer must not win a single trick.
• More matadors: some players continue the matadors past the Jacks into the trump suit (Ace, Ten, King …), as in real Skat.
• Simple scoring: the winner scores 2 points, 3 with Schneider, 4 with Schwarz, and each player 1 point for a 60–60 draw. Or the winner simply scores the base value, doubled for Schneider.
• Harlequin Skat: no layout on the table. The players take turns drawing cards from a pile: the first card normally into the hand, the next one turned the other way round so that only the opponent can see it, and so on ("one to see, one to turn"). Each player knows half of their own cards and half of their opponent's.
• Admirals' Skat: each player gets 5 cards face down, 5 face up and 5 in the hand; 2 cards are set aside as the Skat. The declarer is decided by bidding as in Skat.