New Skat Forum in English?
John McSorley
point out a
forum that I discovered today:
http://skatgame.net/forum/index.php
I have no connection to this site, I just thought you guys might be
interested. It appears
to be run by some Canadians (eh?). I just finished posting a similar
question to one that I posted in here
last autumn.
Phil (aka John McSorley)
Nick Wedd
<8cfd23d1-25eb-4ced...@s16g2000vbp.googlegroups.com>,
John McSorley <tute...@alum.rpi.edu> writes
That site claims to be international, but almost everything it mentions
is in Canada, surely not the world's leading Skat-playing nation. The
rest relates to the USA.
By the way - the British Skat Association's next duplicate tournament
will be held in London, on Saturday June 13th, see
http://www.weddslist.com/skat/ycnw.html
Anyone who has played Skat before will be welcome; but if you prefer to
play less formally, you could go along tonight (Wednesday June 3rd) to
the same venue, The Young Chelsea Bridge Club near Earl's Court tube,
any time from 7 p.m. onwards.
Nick
--
Nick Wedd ni...@maproom.co.uk
John McSorley
>
> >I know a few skat-playing Brits lurk in here, so I thought that I'd
> >point out a
> >forum that I discovered today:
>
> >http://skatgame.net/forum/index.php
>
>
> That site claims to be international, but almost everything it mentions
> is in Canada, surely not the world's leading Skat-playing nation. The
> rest relates to the USA.
>
<snip>
> Nick
> --
> Nick Wedd n...@maproom.co.uk
Hi Nick,
That forum appears to not be frequented , so I'll ask a couple of my
questions here:
Is there a significant difference between bidding a tournee (base
values 5,6,7,8) in American (Tournee) Skat, and a hand game (with a
lower
multiplier than a solo game) the modern version of the game? Why is is
the Tournee considered to have more of a luck factor, as David Parlett
states on his website?
I know the BSA had a Tournee tournament not too long ago...I was
curious if there were any interesting conclusions regarding the
differences between the games.
The reason I'm interested in Tournee Skat is because Wergin's book is
all I have as far as theory, bidding, play of the hand....at
least until I learn German. Well, David passed along some info a while
back...
Thanks,
Phil
Sevo Stille
> Is there a significant difference between bidding a tournee (base
> values 5,6,7,8) in American (Tournee) Skat, and a hand game (with a
> lower
> multiplier than a solo game) the modern version of the game? Why is is
> the Tournee considered to have more of a luck factor, as David Parlett
> states on his website?
In Tournee Skat, the trump suit is determined by the cards in the skat
(and the declarer can merely refuse the first card and risk the second),
unless the declarer plays Solo (the equivalent of Hand).
In modern Skat, the trump suit (or Null or Grand) is always chosen by
the declarer. A Hand game merely adds uncertainity about the two cards
in the Skat.
The choice of suit is extremely critical, even with average strong hands
you'll inevitably lose in two or three suits, and could only bid on one
or two suits - the random assignment of a suit makes the content of the
skat far more determining for the outcome than the entire game play.
The cards in the skat are irrelevant by comparison - in about one in
four or five cases they will significantly improve the hand of the
declarer, but that is not enough to risk bidding on a losing hand.
Serious players will usually only bid on hands they'll win regardless of
the contents of the skat (or at the very best under the assumption of
the average five points being in there). Accordingly, they tend to play
hand more often than not (hand adding a multiplier), and will only pick
up the skat if they have won a cheap bid on rather risky cards (where
playing hand would raise the potential loss by one multiplier) or if
there is a good chance of increasing to a higher value game (i.e.
upgrading to a Grand or Null Ouvert rather than playing a suit short on
Matadors) by finding a suitable card.
> I know the BSA had a Tournee tournament not too long ago...I was
> curious if there were any interesting conclusions regarding the
> differences between the games.
I've always been surprised anybody why would ever play a Tournee rather
than Solo - the few times I joined American Skat rounds, the other
players rapidly destroyed themselves by engaging in suicidal Tournee
plays where they'd have won a Solo hands down. Is there some rule or
convention behind that which escapes me (and which they did not dare to
point out to a German), or was I merely in rounds of inept players?
By my understanding of American Skat rules and and with German
tournament Skat experience, I'd only play Tournee if I was left alone
with a cheap losing hand I had to bid on to avoid losing a more
expensive Ramsch, where Tournee as the cheapest losing game would
contain the damage.
Sevo
Nick Wedd
<9605a2f0-c98f-4ae4...@g20g2000vba.googlegroups.com>,
John McSorley <tute...@alum.rpi.edu> writes
>Hi Nick,
>
>That forum appears to not be frequented , so I'll ask a couple of my
>questions here:
>
>Is there a significant difference between bidding a tournee (base
>values 5,6,7,8) in American (Tournee) Skat, and a hand game (with a
>lower
>multiplier than a solo game) the modern version of the game? Why is is
>the Tournee considered to have more of a luck factor, as David Parlett
>states on his website?
In the current German version of the game, there are two ways of playing
a suit contract. The "ordinary" way, you pick up the whole skat,
discard two cards, and choose whatever trump suit you like. If you play
Hand, you take the Skat without looking at it and choose whatever trump
suit you like. Of these, the Hand contract has the higher multiplier.
I'm not sure what you mean by a "solo game". The usual senses of "solo"
are, "alone against all the other players", and "without looking at the
talon/skat". Neither seems to apply here.
Tournee is risky because you don't get much control over what trumps
are. You take the top card of the Skat and look at it, and immediately
decide whether to have the suit of this card, or of the other card which
you haven't seen yet, as trumps.
>I know the BSA had a Tournee tournament not too long ago...I was
>curious if there were any interesting conclusions regarding the
>differences between the games.
We did. My impression was that it was fun as a change, but we wouldn't
want do this often, in a duplicate event, as the idea of duplicate play
is to reduce the effect of luck, and tournee increases it. I think
other participants felt the same.
>
>The reason I'm interested in Tournee Skat is because Wergin's book is
>all I have as far as theory, bidding, play of the hand....at
>least until I learn German. Well, David passed along some info a while
>back...
Yes, Wergin's book is the best available book on Skat, in English. It's
a pity that some of it is wrong.
Sevo Stille
> I'm not sure what you mean by a "solo game".
In American Skat/Tournee, Solo is the same as Hand in regular Skat
(complete with the suit chosen by the declarer).
Sevo
John McLeod
>Serious players will usually only bid on hands they'll win regardless
>of the contents of the skat (or at the very best under the assumption
>of the average five points being in there). Accordingly, they tend to
>play hand more often than not (hand adding a multiplier), and will only
>pick up the skat if they have won a cheap bid on rather risky cards
>(where playing hand would raise the potential loss by one multiplier)
>or if there is a good chance of increasing to a higher value game (i.e.
>upgrading to a Grand or Null Ouvert rather than playing a suit short on
> Matadors) by finding a suitable card.
I'm very surprised by your statement "they tend to play hand more often
than not".
In my experience of modern German Skat there are many hands that have a
good chance of upgrading to a Grand if a jack or ace is found in the
skat. Also there are many hands on which you would not play hand because
you have a couple of singletons that would be too expensive to lose, but
most skats will enable you to improve your distribution by voiding at
least one suit.
That being so, hand games in the tournaments I have played in (both in
Britain and in Germany) have been relatively rare - certainly far fewer
than half the games - probably more like 1 game in 10. And when a hand
game is played, the reason often is that the bidding is at a level where
the player can no longer risk looking at the skat in the hope of
upgrading to a Grand.
>the few times I joined American Skat rounds, the other players rapidly
>destroyed themselves by engaging in suicidal Tournee plays where they'd
>have won a Solo hands down. Is there some rule or convention behind
>that which escapes me (and which they did not dare to point out to a
>German), or was I merely in rounds of inept players?
It sounds to me as though you were in rounds of inept players.
--
John McLeod For information on card games visit
jo...@pagat.com http://www.pagat.com/
Sevo Stille
> That being so, hand games in the tournaments I have played in (both
> in Britain and in Germany) have been relatively rare - certainly far
> fewer than half the games - probably more like 1 game in 10.
"More often than not" is exaggerated, but one in ten seems unusually few
to me. At the local Preisskat tournaments hereabouts the incidence of
announced Schneider (where Hand is a prerequisite) is rather more than
once in each series, and Hand games seem a lot more frequent than that,
and more than four to five in a series. But of course YMMV across time
and space, as bidding is subject to fashions.
Sevo
David Parlett
<jo...@pagat.com> writes
>I'm very surprised by your statement "they tend to play hand more often
>than not".
>
>In my experience of modern German Skat there are many hands that have a
>good chance of upgrading to a Grand if a jack or ace is found in the
>skat. Also there are many hands on which you would not play hand
>because you have a couple of singletons that would be too expensive to
>lose, but most skats will enable you to improve your distribution by
>voiding at least one suit.
>
>That being so, hand games in the tournaments I have played in (both in
>Britain and in Germany) have been relatively rare - certainly far fewer
>than half the games - probably more like 1 game in 10.
As a matter of interest, I've been keeping records of informal home
games for years and have just checked on the last 250 deals we played.
Of these 42 were hand games, which gives an incidence of about 17 per
cent. But two things to set against this are (a) home play isn't
tournament play, and (b) we still follow the pre-1999 DSkV rule whereby
lost hand games do not incur a doubled penalty. So I should think that
John's estimate of about 10 per cent is about right, if not generous.
Incidentally, when I first refereed a Skat tournament at a Mind Sports
Olympiad, I was surprised at the almost total absence of hand contracts
from the practice of the most experienced German players. So I guessed
they reckoned that if a game was playable in suit from the hand then it
would be worth taking the skat in hope of upgrading to a grand (as John
points out).
A personal rule of thumb that I follow is that if I'm dealt a hand
containing a void, I will either bid a hand game or not bid at all. I
never cease to be struck by the number of times my fellow players take
the skat, look at it, throw it down in disgust, and announce their
contract as being "morally from the hand".
--
David Parlett
For books and games visit http://www.davpar.com
John McSorley
> In message <YImOPg86gpLKF...@pagat.demon.co.uk>, John McLeod
> <j...@pagat.com> writes
This is an interesting thread. reading Wergin's book, one gets the
idea
that he preferred Tournee Skat (of course he did). The book was
written in 1975, I believe,
and in at least one passage he states that delegates to the North
American Skat League
"wisely" kept Tournees, mandatory Ramsch, etc. over the years. I've
read the posts
above, and it makes sense to me that if one wants to reduce luck, play
the German rules.
But couldn't a case be made that if the rules have *mandatory* Ramsch,
it would make
sense to have the Tournee bid as an "out" if you know that your hand
would lose in Ramsch?
Only because the Tournee bid is cheaper....
Anyways, as we know, the American game is dead, or close to it. So,
if I want to
use Wergin's book (bidding system), I should just ignore the Tournee
section?
Is the handplay material still relevent?
Phil
John McLeod
>But couldn't a case be made that if the rules have *mandatory* Ramsch,
>it would make sense to have the Tournee bid as an "out" if you know
>that your hand would lose in Ramsch?
>Only because the Tournee bid is cheaper....
If you play modern German Skat with Ramsch, as is often done in kitchen
table games, the games with skat exchange may be used as an "out" in the
same way. If you play with expensive Ramsch scores, then you may often
find yourself bidding just to avoid the Ramsch, without much prospect of
making your contract unless the skat is very good.
>Anyways, as we know, the American game is dead, or close to it. So, if
>I want to use Wergin's book (bidding system), I should just ignore the
>Tournee
>section?
Having just looked through this section (primarily pp 127-133) I would
say that Wergin's scheme for evaluating hands for tournee also gives a
pretty good guide to hands on which you would bid in German Skat
(without Ramsch) and take the Skat. You can relax the requirements
slightly because you see the whole skat and then have a free choice of
trump suit. So you don't necessarily need a choice of two suits to play
in, and you possibly don't need quite as much strength, but the
difference is not great.
>Is the handplay material still relevent?
A lot of it is. Declarer play is pretty much the same. As a defender you
need to adjust your expectation of what the declarer is likely to have.
It depends on your assessment of the players at the table, but in
general a declarer who plays a Hand game in German Skat is less likely
to have a singleton than in American, unless he has been forced into the
hand game by the bidding.
When the skat has been taken, you expect the declarer will nearly always
have at least 5 trumps in German skat, while in American skat you will
not infrequently be defending against 4-trump tournees, which require a
somewhat different technique.
A point to beware of in Wergin's book is that some of his more
outlandish advice stems from the format of American tournaments at that
time, where there were special prizes for certain feats, such as playing
a contract against a lot of matadors (top trumps). Plays aimed at
winning these prizes are of course unsound when the prizes don't exist.