Printable
Skat Cheat Sheet, Standard Deck
Every number you need at the table, for a normal deck of Clubs, Spades, Hearts, and Diamonds — card points, trump ranking, game values, the bidding ladder, and Null rules, on one page.
Liked the original? The classic cheat sheet (PDF) is still available.
Also for the table: the Skat score sheet
Play with the Blue Rings deck instead? Same numbers, printed on the cards — see that version instead. Keeping score? Print a Skat score sheet.
Card points
Same for every suit. 30 points per suit × 4 suits = 120 points total.
| Card | 7 | 8 | 9 | Jack | Queen | King | 10 | Ace |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Points | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 10 | 11 |
Trick ranking
Suit & Grand games
Non-trump suits, low to high:
7 < 8 < 9 < Q < K < 10 < A
All four Jacks are trump, always — ranked among themselves, weakest to strongest:
J♦ < J♥ < J♠ < J♣
In a suit game, the chosen suit's own 7–A rank below all four Jacks. In a Grand game, no suit is trump — only the four Jacks are.
Null games
No trump at all — not even the Jacks. They rejoin their printed suit:
7 < 8 < 9 < 10 < J < Q < K < A
The solo player promises to lose every single trick. A completely different ranking from the one above — worth double-checking before you play a Null hand.
Game values
▶ Watch: the Game Values video
Game Value = Game Level × Base Value
Base value, by trump
| Trump | ♦ Diamonds | ♥ Hearts | ♠ Spades | ♣ Clubs | Grand |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Base value | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 24 |
Game level, from matadors
Count your unbroken run of top trump (or of missing top trump) starting from J♣. In a suit game, trump doesn't stop at the four Jacks — the chosen suit's own cards continue the same sequence right behind them, in their usual rank order:
J♣ > J♠ > J♥ > J♦ > A > 10 > K > Q > 9 > 8 > 7 (of the trump suit)
11 cards, so with/without can run all the way from 1 to 11. In a Grand game trump is only the four Jacks (1–4); Null has no trump and no matadors at all.
| Have (with) / miss (without), from the top | Count | Level |
|---|---|---|
| 1 card: J♣ | 1 | 2 |
| 2 cards: J♣, J♠ | 2 | 3 |
| 3 cards: through J♥ | 3 | 4 |
| 4 cards: all four Jacks | 4 | 5 |
| 5 cards: + Ace of trump | 5 | 6 |
| … | … | … |
| 11 cards: every trump card | 11 | 12 |
Worked example: planning Spades, you hold all four Jacks plus the Ace of Spades, but not the 10 of Spades. That's with 5 — level 6. 6 × 11 =66.
Sourced from the Skat article on Wikipedia (matador/"Spitzen" definition and the full trump-sequence ordering), since the deck's own cheat sheet only tables the with/without-4 case — the four-Jack cutoff there is a printed-card space limit, not a rule.
+1 to the level for each that applies
| Hand | Skat not picked up. |
|---|---|
| Schneider | Opponents end with 30 points or fewer. |
| Schwarz | Opponents take zero tricks. |
| Schneider announced | Requires Hand. Declarer commits to Schneider before play; loses the whole game if it doesn't happen. |
| Schwarz announced | Requires Hand. |
| Ouvert | Requires Schwarz announced. Declarer's hand is laid face-up after the first trick. |
Worked examples
- Without 1, level 2, × Diamonds (9) = 18.
- With 1, level 2, +1 Hand = level 3, × Clubs (12) = 36.
- With 3, level 4, +1 Schneider, +1 Schwarz = level 6, × Hearts (10) = 60.
- Without 1, level 2, × Grand (24) = 48.
Working out a real hand instead of these examples? The game value calculator does the with/without count and the arithmetic for you.
Null values
Null games skip the base-value × level math — they're fixed:
| Null | Null Hand | Null Ouvert | Null Hand Ouvert |
|---|---|---|---|
| 23 | 35 | 46 | 59 |
Bidding ladder
Bids climb through exactly these numbers — every reachable game value, in order, with the four Null values dropped in at their spot:
18, 20, 22, 23, 24, 27, 30, 33, 35, 36, 40, 44, 45, 46, 48, 50, 54, 55, 59, 60…96…
Full walkthrough of how bidding actually works — the order players bid in, and how to pick a number for your hand — on Skat bidding, explained.
The declarer needs 61 of the 120 points to win. Falling short of the bid is an automatic loss — and it counts double against the declarer.
We designed the Blue Rings deck so none of this needs a cheat sheet at all — the numbers above are printed directly on the cards.