Skat Bidding Explained: Process, Rules and Values
Bidding decides whether you play, what you play, and which value you play for. Here's a from-the-ground-up explanation.
Should I play? And what?
Bidding is really two decisions at once: do you want to stay in at all, and if so, how high? Both depend only on your hand.
Rule of thumb for staying in: you realistically need at least 61 of the 120 card points and a few solid trumps to win a suit game or Grand. If your cards are weak and you have barely any trumps, passing is usually the better choice.
What you actually play is decided after bidding: usually the suit you hold longest and strongest, Grand (only jacks are trumps) if your jacks and a few aces look good, or Null with very weak, low cards and no trick chances. The next sections show how a game's value is calculated, and therefore how high you may bid.
Dealing, Listening, Saying, Relaying: who bids against whom?
Bidding always has four roles: Geben (dealing), Hören (listening), Sagen (saying), and Weitersagen (relaying). With four players, these are four different people. With three players, there's no one to sit out, so Geben also takes on the role Weitersagen.
Sagen bids first: Sagen states numbers, Hören just listens and answers "yes" (I'll play for that value) or "pass". This continues until one of them passes.
Whoever remains from this first round switches into the role Hören themselves and now bids against Weitersagen, who states numbers and carries the bidding forward. Whoever confirms the last value in the end wins the bidding, becomes the declarer, and chooses the game.
In seating terms, with four players: Geben is the dealer (sits out), Hören is Vorhand, Sagen is Mittelhand, Weitersagen is Hinterhand. With three players, the dealer is automatically also Hinterhand and bids as Weitersagen too.
After each game, the roles shift one seat, so everyone takes a turn in every role.
The bidding ladder: which values can you say?
You can't just name any number while bidding. Only values that an actual game can reach are allowed. Each suit has its own base value: Diamonds (German deck: Schellen) 9, Hearts 10, Spades (Blatt) 11, Clubs (Eichel) 12, Grand (only jacks, German: Unter, are trumps) 24. On top of that come your matadors, and the order matters. If you hold the Jack of Clubs (Eichel-Unter), you count "with 1". If you also hold the Jack of Spades (Blatt-Unter) right after it, "with 2", and so on. As soon as one jack in that sequence is missing, the count stops, even if you still hold trumps further down.
That's why the same hand is worth a different amount depending on suit: with two matadors, Diamonds is only worth 27, but Clubs is already worth 36. The table below shows every possible value at a glance, with a toggle for the German or French deck. Together they form the complete bidding ladder:
▶Bidding values
| Jacks | Factor | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | Grand24 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 18 | 20 | 22 | 24 | 48 | |
| 3 | 27 | 30 | 33 | 36 | 72 | |
| 4 | 36 | 40 | 44 | 48 | 96 | |
| 5 | 45 | 50 | 55 | 60 | 120 | |
with 5 without 5 | 6 | 54 | 60 | 66 | 72 | — |
with 6 without 6 | 7 | 63 | 70 | 77 | 84 | — |
with 7 without 7 | 8 | 72 | 80 | 88 | 96 | — |
Null 23·Null Hand 35·Null Ouvert 46·Null Ouvert Hand 59
Each additional level adds +1 to the factor:
The lowest possible bid is 18 (Diamonds, no matadors). Whoever bids higher must, in the end, be able to declare a game that reaches that value. Otherwise they've overbid and automatically lose, regardless of how the game plays out.
How high should you bid?
Only bid as high as your hand supports. What matters is your matadors and intended suit: Diamonds (Schellen) (9), Hearts (10), Spades (Blatt) (11), Clubs (Eichel) (12), or Grand (only jacks, German: Unter, are trumps) (24) as the base value, multiplied by matadors + 1.
Example: holding the Jack of Clubs and Jack of Spades but not the Jack of Hearts (German deck: Eichel-, Blatt- and Herz-Unter) gives you "with 2": a multiplier of 3 (2 matadors + 1 for the game). Clubs with 2 is therefore worth at least 12 × 3 = 36. You can safely bid up to 36.
Special case, Hand games: if your first 10 cards are already a very strong hand, playing Hand is often worth it. You skip picking up the Skat, but get +1 on the multiplier and may additionally announce Schneider or Schwarz. The catch: you never see the two Skat cards, and that can flip your bid into an overbid, as the next section shows.
If you misjudge your hand and bid more than your game ends up being worth, you automatically lose, regardless of how the game plays out.
Have I overbid? What now?
When you pick up the Skat you sometimes notice it right away: a jack you'd counted on being with your opponents turns out to be sitting in the Skat instead. Matadors are counted from your hand and the Skat together, because the Skat always belongs to the declarer, even in a Hand game where you never see it.
Example: you bid 36 for Clubs "without 2" (multiplier 3: 2 matadors + 1 for the game, 12 × 3 = 36). The Jack of Clubs is sitting in the Skat. That means you actually only count as "with 1" (multiplier 2, 12 × 2 = 24), short of your bid.
At this point, while picking up, you have three options. First, play for a higher winning level in the same suit, for example Schneider: in our example that's 3 cases (with 1 + game + Schneider), exactly 12 × 3 = 36, bid met. Second, declare Grand instead of the suit: its high base value of 24 often reaches your bid with fewer matadors or levels. Third, if neither works, give up immediately and declare the cheapest still-valid game, since you have to declare something regardless.
If none of these options work out, you automatically lose, entered at the next multiple of your base value that reaches the bid, doubled for the loss, regardless of how many card points you actually took. In a Hand game you never get this choice at all: you never see the Skat and have to live with the game you already announced.