When using a French deck, it can be created from a standard deck stripped of all cards lower than 7. However, a standard French deck can, and often is, used to play. In this deck, the Face cards consist of an Under Knave (marked with a U), Over Knave (indicated by a O), King (K) and Ace (A), one in each suit. Another difference in this German pack, is the Royalty or Face cards. However, the four suits in a German deck are as follows Acorns, Leaves, Hearts and Bells. Like the familiar French deck, the German deck is comprised of four suits. The game is played using a 32 card German deck, traditionally using a pack of German playing cards. As the deal rotates each hand, when four play, each player will sit out one of every four hands. When played by four, the fourth player usually takes the part of the dealer and does not take part in the actual play of the hand. However, the game is also often played by 4 players with 3 players active in each hand. Skat is a trick-taking card game designed for 3 players. For the rules of the somewhat modified version of Skat played in North American Skat clubs and elsewhere, please see our rules page for North American Skat. The rules given on this page are for the standard German version, also sometimes called International Skat. Being great fun and highly strategic it is not hard to understand why Skat is not only the national card game in that country but very popular in many other countries as well. The origins of International Skat (and thus it's variations) can be traced back to a card club inĪltenburg, Germany in approximately 1810. Since its development in the early 1800's, Skat was and still is, the most popular card game played in Germany and many other German speaking locales.

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