# Lieutnant Skat

## Overview

Lieutenant skat (from German Offiziersskat) is a card game for two players. It is roughly played according to the rules of Skat but with only two players and simplified rules.

Every player has a set of cards in front of him/her, half of them covered and half of them open. Both players try to win more than 60 of the 120 possible points. After 16 moves all cards are played and the game ends.

## Rules

The game has a randomly chosen trump card. It is shown as a small suit symbol in the upper right corner of the score field. All four Jacks are also counted as trumps and do not belong to their suits. So if heart is trump all seven hearts as well as all four Jacks count as trumps, making 11 trumps.

The Jack of clubs does not count as club but as trump.

A special trump is the Grand. In this game no suit is trump and only the four Jacks count as trump. In the game this is indicated by the symbol of the Jack's head.

Every player owns 16 cards. 8 of them covered 8 of them open. The start player can play any of his/her open cards.

The second player has following choices:

1. The second player has in his/her open cards the same suit. He/she has to play one of this suit then. The player with the higher card (see table below) wins both cards.

2. The second player does not have a card of the played suit. He/she can now play any other card. If it is a trump the second player will win both cards. Otherwise the first player will win both cards.

If there is still a covered card below a played card it will be uncovered and is from now on an open card.

The player who won the cards can make the next turn.

The sequence of the cards (from the highest to the lowest - holding for any trump):

- Jack of clubs
- Jack of spades
- Jack of hearts
- Jack of diamonds
- Ace
- Ten
- King
- Queen
- Nine
- Eight
- Seven

The player who wins both cards will add their value to his score. The values of the cards are:

Card | Value
Ace | 11
Ten | 10
King | 4
Queen | 3
Jack | 2
Nine | 0
Eight | 0
Seven | 0

### Scoring

The game is won if you have more than 60 points. With both players having 60 points the game ends in a draw.

Points | Score
60 | 1
61...90 | 2
91...119 | 3
120 | 4

## Remote connections

It is possible to play the game over a network connection with another computer. To do so both players on both computers have to select one color played by the local player and the other by the remote player. Who chooses which side does not matter. It even does not matter if both choose to play the same player as this will automatically be interchanged by the game.

One of the computers will act as game server. Only this one can start a new network game. Also all its game data will be transfered to the client computer. You can force your computer to be server if you do not supply a hostname in the network dialog. This dialog pops up if you start a new network game. As a client you enter the hostname of the machine on which the server is running. The port does not usually need to be changed, but you can enter any valid port number there.

## Menus

### Game Menu

&Ctrl;N Game New

- Starts a new game. In a network game this option is only available for the network server. The network client will be automatically started by the server.

Game End Game

- Aborts a running game.

Game Clear Statistics...

- Clears the all time game memory. This statistic is usually saved when the game ended and shows the amount of played and won games per player. This is cleared with this menu option.

&Ctrl;M Game Send Message

- If connected to another game in a remote session this option allows you to send a message to the remote player.

&Ctrl;Q Game Quit

- Quits the program.

### Settings Menu

Settings Statusbar

- Shows or hides the statusbar.

Settings Startplayer

- Selects whether player 1 (top) or player two (bottom) begins the next game.

Settings Player 1 played by

- Chooses who should play for player 1 (top). It can be one of the following:

  A local player using the mouse as input device. For this option, choose Player.

  The computer. For this option, choose computer.

  A remote player, who is connected to this computer through a network. For this option choose Remote.

Settings Player 2 played by

- Same as Player 1 options, only this refers to Player 2..

Settings Level

- Selects the level of the computer player.

Settings Select Carddeck

- Choose the face and back of the carddeck used for playing. You can select these in a preview dialog showing all carddecks installed for &kde;.

Settings Change Names...

- Change the names of the players.

### The Help Menu

&help.menu.documentation;

## Credits and License

&lskat;

Program copyright 2000,2001 Martin Heni martin@heni-online.de

Documentation copyright 2000,2001 Martin Heni martin@heni-online.de

Documentation converted to &kde; 2.0 by Mike McBride mpmcbride7@yahoo.com

&underFDL; &underGPL;

## Installation

&install.intro.documentation;

### Compilation and Installation

&install.compile.documentation;
&documentation.index;