After dealing the Skat, the dealer then deals a round of face down packets consisting of four cards to each player. This small two card hand is called the Skat. After each player receives this first three card packet, he then places two cards face down in a separate hand near the center of the table. In the first round of cards in each deal, the dealer gives each player a packet of three cards. Each participant is distributed a total of 10 face down cards, in small packets of cards, starting with the player to his immediate left. After the cut, the dealer then begins dealing the cards face-down to each individual in a clockwise direction around the table, placing the cards face down in front of each player. Once the initial dealer is determined he then shuffles the deck and offers it to the player at his immediate right for the cut. When doing this, if multiple cards of the same rank are cut, the cards are further ranked by suit, using the same suit ranking as in the game itself. With Skat, as in most games, there are a number of methods to determine the first dealer, with cutting for low card the most common method. In these cases, these Jacks rank as described above and are part of their own 'trump' suit and not considered as members of any other specific suit. There are also occasions when the hand will be played with the four Jacks as the only trump. When there is a trump suit in the hand, the Jacks are then considered to be part of that trump suit and no longer belong to the suit marked on the face of the Jack. In a few circumstances no trump suit is used in a hand, and in that case the rank of the cards is the expected ranking (from high to low): Ace, King, Queen, Jack, 10, 9, 8, 7. This suit ranking from highest to lowest is as follows: Clubs(♣), Spades(♠), Hearts( ♥), Diamonds( ♦).

In addition, within the game of Skat the suits also have a ranking for various purposes within the game. The non trump suits rank in the following order, high to low Ace, King, Queen, 10, 9, 8, 7. After the four jacks, the remainder of the trump suit (in whichever suit might be named as trump in the hand) rank in the following order, from highest to lowest Ace, King, Queen, 10, 9, 8, 7. Whenever there is a trump suit named (see below), the four highest ranking trumps are always the four jacks, ranked in the following descending order Jack of Clubs (♣), Jack of Spades (♠), Jack of Hearts ( ♥), Jack of Diamonds ( ♦). The ranking of the cards may vary depending on which particular suit is named trump for the hand (if one is named). Although designed strictly for three participants, variations for additional players are provided below in the Optional Rules and Variations section.

Thus, this Skat deck consists of one card of the denominations 7 through Ace in each of the four suits. North American Skat is a trick-taking card game played by 3 players using a 32 card deck created from a standard deck stripped of all cards lower than 7. Over time, revisions and changes were made to the game making this current North American version the version commonly encountered in the United States and surrounding areas. Skat was first and foremost a German game developed in the 1800's and later brought to the Americas by German immigrants wanting a taste of home. For the rules for the variant preferred by the German Skat clubs and the ISPA, please see our original Skat game rules. The following instructions detail the rules for North American Skat and several of it's variants.

Skat card game